My boyfriend, Jim, and I had been to the movies with another couple and were on our way home, with their car just ahead of us. The radio was playing, “Blue Moon.” It was a lovely night, unseasonably warm for November in Minnesota. Inside the car I had removed my leather jacket and shoes and was sitting back and relaxing. There was a lovely full moon and as we rode along in his new Ford, we could see the frozen lake and saw our friends turn off to drive across the lake. The ice appeared like black glass, and I became afraid. It didn’t look thick enough to drive on, although there were fish houses here and there.

“Jim, don’t drive there; it doesn’t look safe,” I said.

“Ken and Dor are ahead of us,” he replied, and laughing, he started around the nearest fish house. I could see the tracks on the other side of the fish house, where our friends had apparently driven. They were no where in sight.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack and the car started to sink. Jim yelled, CJump out the window.”

I rolled down the window, but the water was already up to the window. I jumped out and tried to swim. The water was so cold, I felt my teeth chattering and I was shaking all over. The pressure of the sinking car pulled me down. Every time I reached up to get a grip on the ice to pull myself out, it broke off in my hand. I went under the water, sputtering, coughing and trying to catch my breath. I thought my life was over. I was only 16 years old and had not begun to live yet. I didn’t want to die.

I yelled, “I can’t make it.” As I went under the water for the third time, I prayed, “Lord, help me,” and I felt my long red hair being pulled by Jim, who was lying on the ice and reaching out for me.

He had somehow gotten out of the car by climbing on the window sill, before the car went under and then the roof of the car and was able to fling himself far enough on the ice to get some leverage. He pulled me out of the water where the car had gone down. All we saw were the lights in the hole under the ice, where it had settled about 20 feet down on the bottom.

We inched across the ice to a patch of white ice which looked thicker, and then ran to a nearby fish house. Jim broke in and started a fire in the stove, so that we could try to dry off. My hair was in icicles and I was shivering uncontrollably as I took off my sweater and wrung it out. We tried to warm ourselves at the wood burning stove, but it didn’t seem to help. We were freezing and in danger of hypothermia.

Jim looked outside and saw the lights of a nearby farmhouse.

“Let’s try to make it there,” he said.

We ran as fast as we could and pounded on the door. The lady of the house was extremely friendly and told me to come in and take off all my clothes. She wrapped me in a warm blanket and gave me hot tea to drink. I praised the Lord that we were safe.

Jim called his father to pick us up and about an hour later we were on our way home. I was terrified, because I had never stayed out so late. We lived out in the country and did not have a telephone, so all I could do was go home as the dawn was breaking.

When I arrived, Jim and his father drove away. My father was just leaving for work. He looked at me very disgusted and said, “Where have you been, you slut?”

Without waiting for an answer, he got into his truck and drove away. Inside I saw the worried look on my mother’s face. I started to explain that I had almost drowned and Dad would not let me tell him, but assumed the worst. She tried to comfort me by saying, they both had been so worried, they could not sleep, and that was probably why Dad reacted the way he did.

I began crying. “Would I have been better off drowning?” I told her how close I had come to not coming out alive and she hugged me and said she was glad that I got home.
I told her I had called upon the Lord to help me, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. Even though Jim physically pulled me out, it was the Lord’s will. She and I sat together and thanked God. Although she explained to Dad what had happened when he came home from work, he never apologized to me or even acknowledged my close call. I couldn’t help feeling hurt, but I could not talk to my father..

Miraculously, I did not suffer hypothermia, and didn’t even catch a cold.

It was the first time God interceded in my life, but would not be the last. As I lay in my bed at night, I wondered where the Lord would lead me next.