One early Wednesday evening after leaving work at Cedars-Sinai, I planned to go to Trader Joe’s to pass out a Million-Dollar bill Gospel tract for my Evangelism class assignment. However, as we all know, the Lord sometimes changes our plans to suit His.

At 4:28 pm as I was turning right onto a busy street during rush hour traffic, I gently bumped (rear-ended) the truck in front of me which had suddenly slammed on its brakes. Mentally counting the things that I must get out–proof of insurance, etc., and the horrors that would follow (a whiplash lawsuit), I slowly followed the truck as we both pulled to a stop in a red zone. The driver jumped out and ran towards me. Oh no! I thought.

But then the driver began to apologizing to me! “I’m sorry, I had to slam on my brakes… a car about hit me, and I slammed on my brakes so he wouldn’t hit me!” I asked him if he was ok, and he said he was fine, and so was I. Since there was no damage to either vehicle we did not exchange phone numbers nor insurance information. I thanked him for his honesty. As the truck driver was preparing to leave I said, “Just a moment, I have something for you.”

“Nevermind,” he replied. “It’s not necessary.” I went back to my car and pulled out a million bill, handed it to him and asked, “If you died today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?”

He took it, turned it slowly over and said, “That’s a good question.” Cars were zooming past us, so I told him to read the message on the back. He promised me he would. Because we were both in the red zone in rush hour traffic, we got into our respective vehicles and left. I drove a lot more carefully this time and praised the Lord!

I never made it to Trader Joe’s.

Jon had taken only the first week of my evangelism class when he wrote this. His nickname is now “The Bumper.”