Shaken By God, Shaken By Fate

This near-death experience — stacked on top of all my previous near-death experiences — has left me feeling… strange. But not in the way most people would assume.

Three and a half years ago, I died. I went into death an atheist and I came out of it knowing that God exists. Knowing. Not hoping. Not wishing. Not imagining. Knowing. That moment rewired me. It injected purpose straight into my bloodstream.

I came back burning with urgency — desperate to make my lived life mean something. To leave a mark that outlasts me. To live each day with intention, purpose, impact. The whole “live like it’s your last day” thing wasn’t a cliché for me; it was my daily marching order.

And I didn’t just think about it — I lived it. I changed my leadership style. I changed the way I showed up. I changed the way I interacted with the world.

I built an incredible team at work — empowered them, guided them, helped them break decades-old problems. That’s legacy.

I began writing again — not a poem every few months, but daily. Essays, blog posts, short stories, a fucking entire universe I’m building page by page. That’s legacy.

I learned to be present with people, truly present — if I’m with you, you get all of me. No half-presence, no niceties, no bullshit activities done out of obligation.

I have spent three and a half years wringing meaning from life like water from a stone because I knew God wanted me awake. Engaged. Participating. Alive.

And then came the accident.

This crash shouldn’t have shaken me the way it did. Not after dying multiple times. Not after rebuilding my life with purpose. Not after becoming the person I’m proud to be.

But it did.

And for all the wrong reasons.

I’ve always known that I could fail — heart misfires, weird cardiac chaos, the internal ticking bomb I once carried. But it never occurred to me that someone else could wield the power to end my life. That another person’s inattention — their stupidity, their carelessness, their random selfish act — could nearly erase me from this world.

It hadn’t occurred to me that my purpose, my drive, my legacy, could be cut short by a stranger who wasn’t even looking my direction. A stoned driver. A texting driver. A distracted driver. A fucking idiot in a hurry to get somewhere that apparently mattered more than my existence.

So now the question in my head is ugly and primal: How the fuck do I live with purpose when someone else can take it all away in a heartbeat?

How do I walk through this world with confidence when the threat isn’t spiritual or internal, but human — careless, distracted humans?

I’ve always been alert. I don’t avoid sketchy places; I just make sure my pistol is ready and march the fuck through. But a car out of nowhere? A U-turn I couldn’t physically avoid? What is the spiritual lesson in that?

Is life really so fragile that a stranger on the wrong day can erase everything I’ve built?

Yes. Apparently it is.

And I know — evil exists. Stupidity exists. Inattention kills good people every day. But some part of me thought I was above that particular kind of ending — that because of the way I lived, the intention I carried, the presence I practiced, I had some kind of cosmic buffer.

Clearly, I did not.

And now I’m wrestling with that. Wrestling with existence. Wrestling with purpose. Wrestling with the arrogance or naivety of believing I was somehow untouchable.

I don’t know the answer. I don’t know how to reconcile meaning with fragility. I don’t know how to rebuild the confidence that lets me walk into each day like I own the motherfucker.

I know I will — eventually. I always do. But right now, I am shaken. Shaken not by God, but by fate. By randomness. By the truth that my life can be threatened not just by internal failure, but by the decisions of bumbling idiots behind the wheel.

I wonder if the lawyers will find a way to quantify this in their little legal game — “loss of existential confidence,” maybe? “Spirit destabilization”? “Purpose interference”?

Probably not.

But I’ll figure it out. I’ll find meaning in this too. I always do. Even if this time, it’s going to take me a minute.