Tynan Barnes, of Garland, Texas, had come home during his class break to gather his baseball gear. A senior in high school, Tynan was on the baseball team, and an away game was planned for after school. As usual, as he got into his cherry red 1967 Ford Mustang, his mother Janet waved and called “Be careful!” as she always does whenever any family member leaves the house. (She also asks God to send his angels to keep her family safe. Tynan has believed in angels since he was ten years old). Her son waved back and drove off.

Ten minutes later, as Janet was leaving for a dentist appointment, she heard sirens. Cautiously she drove to the main street in her neighborhood and looked to her left. At the corner of the block down the street, there had been an accident. And…Janet’s heart almost stopped. The car involved was red, similar to Tynan’s Mustang. “I denied my sinking stomach and turned right,” Janet says, “But I only got a short distance. My spirit was telling me to go back and check out the car.” Janet made a u-turn and drove toward the wreck. One policeman waved at her to go on her way, but she stopped for a moment. “Officer, this car may be my son’s,” she told him. Immediately, the police officer opened Janet’s door and helped her out. She was glad of his strength, because the closer they got to the car, the more positive she was that it was Tynan’s Mustang.

But where was Tynan? Buried under the mass of steel? And there was another car involved, she now saw, a pickup truck. “Your son is in an ambulance on his way to Baylor Medical Center’s ermergency room,” the police officer told Janet. He had been calling the school, trying to discover her or her husband’s phone numbers, when she drove up. “What happened?” Janet asked him, hardly believing the terrible twisted metal all around her.

“Your son stopped at the intersection stop sign,” the police officer explained. “Then he started on and was broadsided by a small pickup truck that ran the sign. If he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt…” the officer shook his head. “He was shoved over to the passenger side, and without the belt he would have flown right out the passenger window. Ma’am, he would have died right here.”

Thank you, God. But how was Tynan now? Had he survived the ambulance ride? Janet and her husband raced to the Baylor emergency room, where they were finally able to speak to the doctors. “You’re lucky he was driving a Mustang made of steel,” one doctor said, “and especially that he was wearing his seat belt. Otherwise he would have gone out the window.” Other personnel agreed. The seatbelt had saved Tynan.

Janet and her husband finally found their son, battered and in pain but, blessedly alive. He was talking to the hospital personnel and had not had any painkillers as yet. Janet bent down. “I saw God, Mom,” Tynan whispered. “He told me I’d be fine.”

Janet was getting a tingly feeling. “You’re going to be fine, Tynan,” she touched his cheek, “because you did the right thing. You had your seatbelt on, and I’m so glad.”

“But Mom,” Tynan murmured, “I didn’t.”

“You must have, Tynan. Everyone is saying that the seat belt saved your life.”

Tynan looked puzzled. “I was in a hurry, Mom—I had to get back to school to make the bus for the game, and I just never put it on.”

Janet knew what had happened. “God must have told His angels to buckle Tynan up,” she says, “and then to release him to the paramedics’ care. It’s the only way he could have survived.”

Tynan spent quite a while in Baylor Hospital and even celebrated his 18th birthday there, but he made a fine recovery, is now married with an 18-month-old son and another baby on the way, and has graduated from Bible college with an Associates degree in ministry. “He has been called to be a missionary and work with young children,” Janet says, “and he is also a part time associate pastor at his small Spirit-filled church.”

For this reason she is absolutely sure that God was watching over her son in a special way that day. “He had angels all over that ’67 Mustang,” she says today, “ready to send them to save my son’s life.”

Even though Tynan had been careless, God saved him anyway. Do you think we always have to be doing the “right” thing in order for God to love us and take care of us?