John glanced down and saw the red needle inch past 90. He let his foot off the pedal and coasted down to ten over. The last thing he needed was a ticket, but all he wanted was to get away- fast.

He forced his white knuckles to relax and inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly. His eyes remained glued to the road before him, straining to see the white dashed lines through the rain pounding against the windshield.

Occasional orange glows flashed through the car as he sped past hundreds of highway lights. The highway was deserted; the only thing he could hear was the sound of pounding rain filling his ears.

Where are you going?

He let a hot stream of air through his nose. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. He didn’t even care if he went home tonight. No, why go back home? He had enough cash with him. He’d stay in a hotel. That would teach Nicole not to fight with him again.

He pounded his fist against the wheel. How could things have gotten this out of control?

Music. He needed music. He switched on the HD radio and cranked up some jazz, drowning out his thoughts.

He squinted to read a sign on an overhead bridge, trying to distinguish the words distorted by the rain. On a sudden whim, he cut across the four empty lanes and took the next exit.

He slowed down and clicked on the high beams. He could barely see anything in the pitch black beyond the wip-wiff of the wiper blades. No, wait- there were those two yellow lines on either side, guiding him to the familiar T-intersection.

He turned left without thinking. Now he knew where he was going: to the bridge, the same one from his childhood, the one he’d always gone to as a kid. His escape.

He drove through the winding country road, drinking in the rain-filled silence. He couldn’t remember turning off the jazz. He didn’t care.

The sound of his son’s angry voice filled his ears. The same burning regret and helplessness started to burn in his gut, but he shoved it away.

“How could I have known?” John muttered to himself. “He never told me. He never told any of us. And then he expected me to be understanding?”

The regret came back and threatened to boil over. How did I not know? He pounded the wheel again. He’d thought he’d been in control. He was the man of the household, wasn’t he? But somehow, his middle son had gone off the deep end right under his nose, his oldest daughter didn’t even speak to him anymore, and his youngest daughter was even worse. Things had been going well until he caught her sneaking out to meet up with a boy three years older than she was. It all went downhill from there.

And now, his wife was angry at him, he was angry with her, and he had nowhere to go- except to the bridge, his only escape.

He used to be able to go to the office for his escape, to bury himself deep in his paperwork to relieve other stresses of home, but not even that looked promising. After the recent blow-up at work, he wasn’t sure he was going to keep his job for another week.

Frustrated tears leapt into his eyes, but he fought them back. True men didn’t cry.

God, where are you?

God hadn’t been there when his family started going down the drain. God hadn’t been there when he’d fought with his wife- again. God hadn’t been there when his boss started chewing him out. God hadn’t been there.

And now, he realized what a fool he’d been. God hadn’t been there before; God wasn’t there for him now. He obviously didn’t exist- otherwise He would have been.

The realization sent a slight feeling of sly arrogance through him. He would’ve been able to get out of this mess if he hadn’t been waiting for some God to help him. Now that he saw that, he suddenly felt empowered, as if he was leagues ahead of the rest of the world who used their so-called Christ as a crutch. Based on the last six months of his life, John was sure he was only a figment of their puny imaginations.

If God really existed, He would’ve helped him. Wouldn’t He?

But if He does, why didn’t He?

John slammed the steering wheel with his fist and exclaimed, “God, where are you?!”

A blur of brown leaped onto the road only yards ahead. John clenched the wheel and stomped on the brake, sending his entire body weight forward as terrible squealing filled his ears, but he didn’t have enough time to-

The back of the car began to fishtail. Before John could stop it, the car veered off the road, and the terrible sound of crunching metal exploded in his ears.

“Mister? Mister, wake up!”

John’s eyes slowly drifted open. Searing pain in his head made him wince. He slowly became aware of more pain, somewhere else. His leg. He strained to focus on his right leg, pinned under a mess of crunched metal and plastic.

He went to say, “What happened?” but all that came out was an agonized moan.

“Ssh, don’t talk, mister,” the voice warned. After a moment, it spoke again, filled with urgency. “We’ve gotta get you out of here! Your car’s on fire!”

Fire? Yes… for the first time, the scent of smoke registered in his brain.

He felt the hands tugging on metal surrounding his leg more than he saw it. His eyes were open, but he was barely seeing anything, blinded by the pain.

The terrible pressure on his leg suddenly decreased, but at the same time, so did the heat. He felt himself pulled out of the car and slung over a strong shoulder. He felt the huge angry raindrops pelt his back as the stranger carried him away from his car, now engulfed in flames and hissing against the rain.

After a minute, he was gently set down on soaking wet grass, and he was leaned against the strong, rough bark of a tree. He heard a strange sound above the pounding rain and opened his eyes to see the stranger shucking off his poncho. The man pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a three-digit number.

“Hi, there’s a man who’s been injured on Highway Four… yeah, car wreck. Bad one. Hit a tree. …He’s got a bad cut on his head, and his leg got really banged up. We’re gonna need an ambulance.” He paused. “Yep, Highway Four. Hurry, please; this man’s losing a lot of blood fast.” As he spoke, he took his poncho and carefully wrapped it around John’s right leg. When he was done, John forced himself to take a deep breath. It sure hurt a lot less without the rain pounding on it.

The stranger snapped his cell phone shut. “They’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”

John dragged his eyelids open and looked at his car- his once sleek, silver Mercedes. The luxury car of his dreams was now a heap of twisted, burning metal and plastic, hissing as the raindrops fell on the fire, ruining the only valuable thing in this life he’d had left.

“Do you need me to call anyone for you?”

For the first time, John looked at the stranger. The light from his burning car showed only a few features: the rain dripping off a clean-shaven, angular face, deep-set eyes, short hair plastered to his forehead. A red plaid shirt and blue jeans. He looked like the typical country boy that might live in these parts, and he looked barely a day over twenty years old.

He remembered the question and remembered Nicole. He imagined her at home, pacing in their living room, wringing her hands, worrying sick about him.

“No.”

“No?” the stranger asked skeptically. “No family, wife, kids, no one that you wanna call?”

“No.”

“Don’t you have any?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“Then, if I may ask, sir… why not? They’ll be worried about you. They’ll want to know you’re okay.”

John closed his eyes and said, “Don’t call my wife.”

“But-”

“Don’t,” John warned, opening his eyes and shooting an angry glare at him.

The man held up his hands, palms out and fingers spread wide. “Whoa, take it easy. Sorry, I didn’t know there was an issue there.”

They both paused, drinking in the sound of the rain and fire.

“Mister, I know I don’t know you too well and all, but I know that sometimes talkin’ about somethin’ really helps to make you feel better, so… would you like to talk about it?”

John opened his mouth to blurt out a strong “NO,” but there was something about this man that made him hold it back. Some sort of honesty in his eyes, or sincerity in his voice… something. John closed his eyes, wishing the pain would ease. Right now, he didn’t know which was worse- the pain in his head and leg, or the pain in his heart.

“Everything’s going wrong for me.”

The stranger just looked at him, so John forced himself to continue.

“I’ve hit rock bottom. I’m about to lose my job. I might lose my wife because of all our fights. I’ve basically lost all my children already. I’m a failing husband with a doomed career. I’ve lost my car, my money, my family, everything. I’ve got nothing else to live for.”

The stranger and John remained silent for a long moment. Finally, the stranger said quietly, “Mister, before I say anything else, do you consider yourself… uh, religious?”

“No,” John replied adamantly. “God has never been there for me. As far as I’m concerned, he’s nothing more than a crutch for the weak to use. I’m not weak.”

“But you are powerless to change anything on your own, are you not?”

The stranger’s gentle words struck John harder than the car’s impact with the tree. He had just said so himself, hadn’t he? Only in different words. He was a failing father and businessman. He was trying to change everything on his own, but nothing was working…

“Sir, may I propose that you stop doing everything on your own? Because, let’s be honest- we can both see that it hasn’t been working.”

Can this kid read my mind?

“Maybe you should let someone else help you. Someone else who can. But… there’s only one person who can, and that’s God. He’s already proved that He loves you, and He is more than ready to help you with everything.”

John suddenly realized just how helpless everything really was. He was caught in a downward spiral, and he couldn’t get out. But he had to, or else he was going to lose everything, and fast.

“It’s like you’re trying to climb out of a pit, but you keep digging deeper and deeper- like getting disoriented underwater and swimming down instead. But now, God is reaching his hand down through the water to lift you up and out.”

John looked up at the stranger and was struck by the love and compassion he saw in his eyes. He said quietly, “Why wasn’t God there for me before?”

“He never left you,” the stranger replied resolutely. “He was always there. Maybe… well, maybe you just weren’t looking for Him in the right places. He doesn’t work for us, sir- He won’t do what we want Him to. He’s God- He doesn’t have to. But He wants to help us. He wants to help you.”

“Yeah? How could he help me?”

“He loves you, sir. He is willing to help you be patient with your wife and have wisdom with your kids. He will help you do the right things at work. But you have to ask Him for it. You have to ask and believe in what He’s done, and what He’ll do.”

“And… what did He do?”

The Stranger told him.

“And He is ready to give you whatever help you need,” the stranger concluded. “He promised, He’ll never leave you or forsake you. He can help. Just trust Him. What do you think?”

“I think… I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know about?”

John paused. “I’ve never not been in control before. I’m not comfortable surrendering control to someone else.”

The stranger smiled. “But really, considering how things have been going, who do you think is more capable to control?”

A small smile lit John’s face. “Maybe… I can go for that.”

“ ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,’” the stranger quoted. “Jesus said that. Do you want rest, John?”

John’s heart pulled desperately inside of him. “Yes. Oh, more than anything, yes.”

“Then you need to tell Jesus himself that. Do you want to do that?”

John’s heart began to pound inside of him. “Yes.”

Right there, as the rain pounded down and smoldered the rest of the flames of John’s car, and as sirens wailed in the distance and flashing lights grew nearer, the country boy led John to Christ.

“Thank you,” John said to the stranger sincerely, shaking his hand. An ambulance, fire truck, and a couple police cars sped closer and closer. “Thank you.”

The emergency vehicles stopped with squealing tires, and several men jumped out of the cars. Some firemen rushed to the car to put out the remnant of the fire. The policemen checked out the scene of the wreck. The paramedics rushed straight to John.

After checking him over, they patched up the cut on his forehead and splintered his leg for transport. They said the leg was broken in a few places with mangled muscle that would probably require several surgeries to fix. It was a good thing the stranger had been there to get him out of the car, or else he would have been a goner for sure.

They carefully lifted John onto a stretcher. Just as they were wheeling him toward the ambulance, John heard the stranger say, “Good luck, John.”

“Thank- hey, how did you know…”

John turned, but the stranger was gone.

“Hey, did you see where that man went? The one in the red plaid shirt?” he asked one of the paramedics. The paramedic shrugged.

John lay down on the stretcher. How could he have completely disappeared like that?

John watched the roof of the ambulance slide over him. It occurred to him that the stranger somehow knew his name, but he had never learned his.

The paramedic slammed the doors shut, then checked the equipment and John’s vitals as the ambulance began to speed away. He continued working on John’s leg.

“Are you going to want us to notify your family, sir? Do you need us to call someone?” the paramedic asked.

John thought for a moment, then said, “Yes. Please… I need you to call my wife.”