The New York Cabby Miracle

It had been a rough few months.I desperately wanted a baby, to have a little one to hold in my arms, to call my own. Twice I had miscarried. I held these hurts up before God, shaking them in His face and saying, “See what You did when I trusted You to answer my prayer and give me a baby?” I just couldn’t move on.

But this day I was moving on, at least physically. My husband and I were moving to New York to work at a mission on the lower East Side. I needed the change. Dan had gone ahead to his parents’ apartment in Manhattan, while I had made a detour through Boston to return a child we had been caring for to his parents. During the long bus ride, I curled against the window and wept.

My doctor thought that my last pregnancy had been what they call a hysterical pregnancy—all of the symptoms had been in my head. That had been a humiliating blow, insult to injury. I had been so sure!

Now I wasn’t sure what I wanted. As I tried to get comfortable on the bus, I doubted everything I had always believed and encouraged others to believe. What business did I have doing missionary work? How could I tell others to trust in God when my own faith was at an all-time low? My life was spinning out of control.

After what seemed like forever, we arrived at the bus terminal in New York City. I had been to New York a few times to visit Dan’s parents, but always felt overwhelmed. The city was too big, too busy, too impersonal. I usually walked around like a tourist, looking up. I wasn’t looking at the skyscrapers, though; I was searching for a patch of blue sky.

I found my way to a pay phone and called my in-laws’ number, desperate to hear Dan’s voice. Some of what little money I had with me was eaten by broken payphones, but I wasn’t worried yet. Dan would pick me up soon.

When I finally found a phone that worked and got through to the number, there was no answer. I bought a cup of coffee and tried again. Still no answer.

I stepped out on the street by a taxi stand, and realized it was getting dark. City lights blurred the tears that once more filled my eyes.

I went back inside and tried again. Still no answer. I wasn’t prepared for this. I hadn’t been clear with Dan about my arrival time, and I didn’t have his parents’ address or know how to get there. Besides, no one was home. All I had was the address of the mission on the Lower East Side where we would be working, in an area known as Hell’s Kitchen.

Fear began to set in as I stepped outside once more and hailed a taxi. When I gave the cabby the address of the mission, he asked gruffly, “Really?” He flicked on his meter and pulled away from the curb.

The meter seemed to turn over faster than the tires as we inched our way through traffic. I pulled out my wallet and counted the bills again. The amount on the meter was rapidly approaching the amount of cash I had with me. I had thought when I jumped into the taxi that if I didn’t have enough money, I could run into the mission and get the rest, but now I was having misgivings.

I leaned over to get a better look at the driver in the glow of passing street lights. His face had the hard, deep lines of an ex-con or a gang member. I recalled his gruff tone when he questioned the address I had given him. Then a very large scar caught my attention. It went halfway around his neck. This was not a man I could easily relate to or make small talk with.

As I leaned back in the seat, the total on the meter raced past the amount in my purse. I should have been more patient. I should have waited at the bus station and kept calling. I flashed back to every creepy headline I had ever read about cab drivers kidnapping and molesting female passengers. I had made a horrible mistake!
Then I did something I should have done earlier. I forgot my grievances against God and prayed. “Lord, I’m in a predicament! Please show me what to do. Should I ask him to stop and get stranded in the middle of New York City, I know not where? He doesn’t look like the kind of person who would understand or be sympathetic. Please forgive me for my foolishness and my bad attitude toward You. Protect me, and show me if there’s anything I can do to help You get me safely to my destination.”
The answer came forcefully to my mind. “Tell this man about Me, like everything depends on it.” Before I could reason my way out of it, I took a deep breath and began.
“I need to make a confession. This taxi ride is costing a lot more than I expected, and I don’t have enough money with me to pay for it. I should have said something sooner. I am on my way to a mission, where my husband and I will be working. I am not very familiar with New York, and I didn’t realize how long it would take. I am so sorry. When we get there I will have to run inside and get some more money. My husband and I try to live like Jesus did, preaching the Gospel to everyone we meet, and we trust Him to supply our needs day by day.”

As I continued, Jesus gave me the words to say, “You know, so many people need to feel Jesus’ loving, healing touch. He has all the answers they need, whatever their need. He can heal every hurt, every heartache. His answers are just a prayer away. Have you ever asked Jesus into your heart?”

There was a long, heavy silence, then a cough, then sobbing. I leaned forward and saw a tear roll down the cabby’s cheek.

“My grandma used to take me to church when I was a little kid,” he began in a deep voice filled with emotion. “She would talk to me about Jesus. I even prayed with her. But then she died and nobody has talked to me about Jesus since. You are right. There are so many people who need to be healed. I need to be healed. I have led a horrible life. My grandma would be so ashamed of me for all the bad things I have done. I don’t think Jesus would forgive me now.”

It was my turn to choke back tears. “Jesus hung on the cross between two criminals. One of them asked for His forgiveness, and Jesus said, ‘This day you will be with Me in Paradise.’ Jesus said once that He didn’t come to preach to the good people or the people who thought they didn’t need His help. He preached to the drunks and the prostitutes, the people who knew they needed Him. He will be there for you, too. All you have to do is to ask Him to forgive you, and He will. He will forgive anything.”
My own recent past flashed through my mind—my doubts and failure to keep trusting the Lord when things seemed to go so terribly wrong. “He can even forgive us for doubting Him,” I said, my voice breaking. “When we come to the point where we realize that we need to trust Him with every part of our lives, when we accept the fact that He knows exactly what we need and will answer our prayers in His perfect time, that’s when He is able to do His greatest miracles.”

“Don’t worry about the money,” the cabby said. “I’ll take you wherever you need to go, and pay for it myself. What you are doing is really important. Hell’s Kitchen is full of people who need to hear about Heaven. I’ll pray more now, and I will try to be a better person. God sent you to me.”

We arrived at the mission, and he got out and helped me with my bags. I hugged him and told him Jesus would never fail him. He waited until someone came out to greet me, and then he smiled and waved as he drove off.

So that is how I arrived safely at the mission. I got through to my husband, who apologized for not staying by the phone. He had expected me to arrive on a later bus.
The folks I told about the cabby were shocked. New York cabbies are notoriously some of the hardest people in the world, they said. They never give free rides to anybody. That was a miracle.

But I knew that the real mir­acle had not been the free taxi ride. The miracle had been that two people who both needed to be closer to God had felt His loving touch. It took the tears running down the face of this seemingly hardhearted cabby to make me see that. The words God gave me for him were just what I needed to hear. God had sent him to me.

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Acts 4:30 ESV / While you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

John 4:48 ESV / So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

Acts 3:16 ESV / And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.