Galen Kealoha Chock – 2018
In 1991 I was employed at a job in Ft Collins, Colorado as a Printed Circuit Board designer and programmer. I also had a teaching job at the Denver Business College as an AutoCAD instructor. During this time I was driving a red Toyota Corolla hatchback and really liked that car. That day after doing my teaching I had made a deal with the director of the training center to buy one of his ‘386 computers which he was selling off so he could buy some new ‘486 computers for the center. I got a pretty good deal on the computer. I put it in the hatch section of the car.
As I proceeded to head home on the I-25 freeway I was nearing the Mile High Stadium when I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw a car at high speed crossing lanes and veering towards me. He wasn’t going to miss me. Rather he hit my car on the left rear side and started my car rolling.
From the outside perspective the car was rolling and hitting the roadway. The first roll crushed the driver’s side roof down to where my head would have been if I had been sitting up. Since the car was rolling I wasn’t sure what was going on because everything was kind of a blur. However, I felt a pressure of something pushing me down towards the passenger seat. My seat belt was on but there was a force holding me away from the roof of the car which had been crushed in where my head would have been.
I ended up landing on the roof and my head bounced off of the roof of the car probably near a sharp section of the roof because I did end up with a gash to my scalp. I did not pass out. When the car finally came to a stop I calmly turned off the ignition and pulled out the keys. I was laying on the roof so I had to unbuckle my belt and look for a way out.
By this time some people had stopped and one guy kicked in a rear window on the rear driver side door. I squeezed through the window and cut the back of my neck up where glass was protruding but nothing serious.
After getting a ride to the hospital and getting stitches in my scalp I went home with my wife, Colleen.
The computer was a little bent from being tossed around in the back of the car, but once I pushed the memory modules back in the computer booted up just fine. I was happy it still worked.
I got the impression … that my father, who had died when I was four years old, had been allowed to push me over in the car and protect me from being killed.
Years later I was in a Stake Conference leadership session with an Area Authority Seventy. He is now serving as the Denver Temple President. At the end of that meeting there was a sister who used to live in our ward. Her husband was a bishop in my ward back at the time of the accident. In her prayer she said some words which will stick with me as a revelatory moment. She said in her prayer, “may those who are here be blessed with understanding.”
It then hit me that the incident on the freeway was a preservation of my life not just by luck but by intervention. I got the impression during that prayer that my father, who had died when I was four years old, had been allowed to push me over in the car and protect me from being killed. At the time I had felt a warm feeling like a blanket had been put around me. I had had this same sensation before.
I reflected on many other near death situations where I was preserved and realized that there had been interventions in every situation. I should not have survived but I did. In 1978 I had gone to the Provo Temple and had done the work for my father (George F. Chock) in the temple. My older brother, Steven’s, work had previously been done. He too had died within a few weeks of my father’s death in 1963.
Both had served as missionaries to my Chinese ancestors who needed to have the gospel preached to them. But I believe that in addition one or both of them have been involved in watching over me.
When I was growing up I resented the fact that I didn’t have a father to help me and guide me in this life. Now I realize that he was able to do that, probably not in a traditional way but in a very spiritual way.
Once I had completed doing the temple work for the 212 Chinese ancestors whose names were recorded in an ancient book that we had gotten from relatives, I began feeling that an enormous army of Chinese family members were protecting me and surrounding me.
I feel fulfilled and comforted in my knowledge of this fact. Family history and temple work give those on the other side power to then be our ‘ministering angels’ and they become an eternal part of our lives.
I believe this to be true. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.