That Subtle Voice

Over the years, I’ve taken to listening to that little inner voice that gives directions. Sometimes I take a different route while driving and find later I avoided something as small as a delay in getting to work on time or perhaps something bigger like a car accident. Or maybe I grab my phone out of my purse just in time to answer an important phone call from a friend in need. Either way, I have found that this subtle voice always leads me in the right direction.

A few nights ago, this voice was not so subtle. And it lead me to do something I would not ordinarily do.

It was pouring rain as I got off work and was heading home. At the first stop sign I approach every night leaving, I take a right to head up the hill toward my house. This particular night, however, something took control of my arms to steer the car to the left instead.

Well, that was weird…why am I going left? Too late now. Guess I’m taking the long way home this evening. The route to the left from the stop sign took me to the bottom of the steep hill, instead of the top. At the bottom of the hill I noticed a few cars in front of me driving slowly around something in the road. It was dark and rainy, so I didn’t see until I was much closer that they were slowing down and swerving around a man walking in the middle of the road attempting to get their attention.

But no one was stopping.

I “knew” this is why I was directed to the left instead of the right. Then I took a risk, as a small woman alone on a dark night, I would ordinarily have never taken.

I stopped the car.

Of course, I had the warnings of society playing in my head…would this man weasel his way into my car and chop me into a hundred pieces? Maybe I’ve seen to many movies… When I looked in his eyes I knew this wasn’t the case. He was in genuine distress. He was having difficulty breathing and was struggling to take one step at a time. I offered to call him medical attention or a loved one, but he said all he needed was his heart medication and he lived just at the top of the hill, but simply could not make it on foot and only needed a ride the short distance.

I let him in my passenger seat and talked to him as we drove slowly up the hill. He mumbled some thing incoherently about Vietman, chihuahuas, and no one stopping to help him.

When he pointed to the house I was to stop at, I knew why he was mumbling about chihuahuas. I had driven by this house several times and seen the pack of chihuahuas running about the yard. He struggled to get himself up out of my car. Before walking away, he turned and reached his hand in my car. I grabbed the hand he extended to me as he thanked me and said I was his “angel”. I watched him struggle to his front door and go inside.

I am by no means an angel, but something was working through me that evening to get him home safely.

Perhaps his heart would have failed on him trying to walk up that steep hill on his own that evening as others just drove around him. I guess I’ll never know. But I do know that listening to that subtle (or not-so-subtle as the case may be) without question has never lead me down the wrong path.