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The Miracle Car 2015-2016
(Reflections of My Childhood Series)
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The toy car the boy holds in his left hand ignites his memory of a genuine supernatural intervention. Because he is a child it wasn't long before, that he was in the back seat with his two younger siblings in a 1952 Buick Fastback.
His father sat in the front passenger seat while his mother was learning to drive. The father who was quickly losing his patience with his wife screamed: “Turn here!” The mother turned abruptly onto a country gravel road, and because she did it as a reflex response, the car lunged towards an extremely deep irrigation ditch. With the car turning on two wheels, and half the car suspended in the air, it seemed most assuredly that the car would roll over on its side. Because this model was not equipped with seat belts, the car rolling over would most certainly result in all its occupants perishing. Knowing that trying to steer the car was futile, the young mother screamed, with her hair billowing in the wind. Her hands were raised in a gesture of panic. The milliseconds that all this transpired, gave her little time to do anything else. While the boy's brother and sister noticed their mother's reaction, and the gravity of the situation, the boy's attention was drawn to a brilliant light just outside his window. Then as suddenly as this perilous turn of events began, it ended. The car's engine was turned off without the turning of the key and the car itself was neatly parked on the side of the road. A startled farmer came to the window of the driver's door and exclaimed: “I can't believe what I just saw!”
The car is depicted in the painting as if the intervening light has interceded with such a force that the very physical integrity of the car has been altered. The golden light that envelopes the boy reminds him that contrary to his inclination to perceive himself as insignificant, the memory reassures him that God intervenes on behalf of the weak.
