On a late Monday night in the summer of 1996 when I was cycling back to my house from a visit to a friend I was disturbed by a person kneeling beside the cycling path I was on. Thinking: "What is he doing there in the middle of the night?". I didn't slow down and when I looked up I was smacked backwards off my bike. The back door of this utility company maintenance man's van had been hanging entirely over the cycling path I was on and the very (thin) tip of it hit me exactly on my right eye. I was unconscious for only a few seconds. I found myself on the street next to my bike and immediately knew in every cell of my body that I had been seriously hit, although it took me a second to realize it was my face. My eyeball was squashed and the skull to the right of it was crushed.

Looking back I know now I had been smacked into heaven. I was focused ('what the hell hit me - I need help') and I was serene. There was no panic and hardly any pain. This state of being stayed with me over the next two or three weeks, whatever the emotions were that arose. My sadness over the loss of my eye was no self pity. It was I who consoled my friends and parents. My partner was completely and totally there with me in my peace. People around me were angry at the maintenance man (who had been securing a smashed down lantern post with red-white tape!) but my partner and I could not meet them there. I couldn't even summon up any anger or frustration. It took me a while to realize and let in that I was actually happy. I was in a state of no lack and total fulfillment.

This state of grace didn't remain in my awareness as an experience. Actually it left and I couldn't even admit to anyone for the longest time that that episode had actually been one of my happiest in my entire life. I am now resting in the peace of God as a result of a process of being willing to be undone and turning my will and my life over into the hands of my savior. I know now that back in 1996 the accident had already shown me who I really was. The Holy Son of God.

P.B. - Netherland