Divine Appointments in the Rearview Mirror

On my last day in Washington, D.C., I visited the Museum of the Bible. The trip had already been full of meaningful moments, and as the afternoon unfolded, I found myself asking the Lord a simple question: 

What do You have for me here, Lord?

The answer met me in the front seat of a taxi.

After my visit, I called for a ride back to the hotel. My driver carried a warm, gracious presence and an easy way of talking that immediately put me at ease. As we made our way through the city, she asked how I had liked the museum. Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, I noticed a Bible resting on her dashboard. That one detail opened the door to something deeper.

I asked whether she ever ministered to the people who rode in her car.

What followed was a flood of testimony. Through the rearview mirror came stories of healing, obedience, suffering, discernment, and the quiet ways God meets people in unexpected places. By the time we reached my hotel, I knew I had encountered someone I was meant to meet.

Later, when I asked whether I could share her story with my readers, I told her our meeting had felt quite special. She laughed and told me that after her brain surgery, her doctors had given her a nickname: Special.

She wants the glory to go to God. So for this story, that is what I will call her.

And truly, that is exactly what the encounter was: special.

A life marked by grace

Special’s story carries the kind of depth that comes through suffering, healing, and a long walk with God.

In February 2011, she underwent brain surgery for a large meningioma tumor. Yet the road to that moment had stretched over many years. Looking back, she can trace the signs much further.

She remembers a season of excruciating headaches so intense that she would sit with shades over her eyes. Later came the strange episodes she struggled to explain. At times she felt a tightening at the top of her head, a sensation she described as though someone were twisting her brain. She would stop mid-conversation. She would lose track of what had just happened. She experienced falls, confusion, and stretches of lost memory.

At the time, she was working as a nanny. The father of the children in her care recognized a change in her before she fully grasped it herself. He urged her to go to the doctor, and his insistence became a turning point. When she arrived for the appointment, her mother helped explain what had been happening, because the memory loss itself had become part of the story.

The MRI revealed a large tumor and significant swelling on her brain.

Her doctor explained that the tumor was large, though noncancerous, and that surgery would require careful study because of its size and depth. He kept her in the hospital immediately. The swelling was too severe for anything casual. Her life had reached a critical moment, and the path ahead would require wisdom, care, and the hand of God.

Recovery with the Lord’s hand on her

Special speaks about that season with humility, clarity, and deep gratitude.

The surgery itself was serious. Her doctors explained that they would do everything they could to protect her, though the size of the tumor meant the procedure carried tremendous weight. Afterwards came a long recovery marked by weakness, repeated scans, and careful follow-up. Her walking was affected. Her memory had been affected. Her mind had to heal in layers.

Even now, she says some things return as others help refresh them for her. Certain memories rise back to the surface when someone retells the details. She speaks openly about the ways the surgery affected her ability to process numbers and time. Yet even in that, her strongest emphasis remains the faithfulness of God.

Again and again, she returns to the same phrase: “Nobody but God.”

Her doctors were amazed by her recovery. She knows why. She came through because the Lord carried her.

That faithfulness continued for years through follow-up appointments, repeated MRIs, and steady medical watchfulness. Last year, she finally received the news that she was fully released from that long cycle of monitoring. Her testimony stretches from the operating room all the way into the present day.

She also carries visible reminders of what she survived. She speaks plainly about the scar on her head and the indentation left from the surgery. Yet every reminder points her back to grace.

When the pulpit moved into everyday life

What came after her surgery gives the story even more power.

The Lord opened her life into a new kind of ministry, one rooted in daily obedience.

Before she ever began driving passengers, she went through a moment that changed how she understood the church. One Sunday, car trouble kept her from attending service. She had been planning to go, and the disappointment weighed on her. In that moment, she sensed the Spirit speak clearly to her heart: “The church is out there. The pulpit is out there.”

She responded immediately.

She gathered her gospel tracts, stepped outside, and began walking through her neighborhood. Very soon, she came across a group of young men and started speaking with them about the Lord. That single act of obedience became a pattern. She began walking regularly, often covering three or four miles with tracts in her hand and a readiness in her spirit. Whoever crossed her path became an opportunity for ministry.

She spoke to young men on the street. She encouraged people in hard places. She gently corrected parents when their words toward their children grieved her spirit. She carried a strong conviction that every life belongs to God and deserves to be treated with dignity and love.

Her ministry took shape on sidewalks, in apartment complexes, and in everyday spaces where most people hurry past one another. She simply made herself available.

A taxi becomes a place of ministry

Later, she began driving.

She first started with Uber Eats, then moved into rideshare driving after her sister encouraged her to do so. Soon, she found herself transporting passengers across the city, and the car became another place where her willingness to obey God could unfold.

For Special, ministry in the car felt natural. She brought the same yielded heart with her into the driver’s seat that she had carried into the streets. Passenger after passenger entered her car carrying private pain, unanswered questions, strained relationships, spiritual hunger, or emotional exhaustion.

Often, she says, the Lord would prompt her while she was driving. She would glance into the rearview mirror and sense something stirring in her spirit about the person sitting behind her. Sometimes it came as a word. Sometimes it came as a question. Sometimes it came as a deep sense that this rider needed encouragement, correction, prayer, or a simple reminder that God sees them.

Years ago, she gave the Lord a clear yes: whatever He told her to do, she would obey. That decision shaped every ride that followed.

One young man sat in the back seat sighing heavily. She asked whether everything was all right, and as he began to talk, she sensed the Lord showing her that he was trying to direct his life on his own terms while God was already calling him into something higher. She spoke that word to him, and his response came quickly. He told her God must have sent her, because she had spoken into something she could not have known on her own.

That kind of moment has happened many times.

Divine appointments in motion

Over the years, Special’s car has become a place where people open their hearts.

Some talk about marriage struggles. Some talk about rebellious children. Some talk about grief, anger, fatigue, confusion, or disappointment. Some sit quietly until a gentle question opens the door. Others begin sharing almost immediately, as though peace in the car has given them permission to lay down what they have been carrying.

Special ministers in a way that feels deeply human. She listens. She speaks when the Lord prompts her. She tells the truth with tenderness. She offers wisdom shaped by real experience and seasoned by prayer.

Again and again, riders tell her, “I was meant to get your ride.”

That line fits the story perfectly.

A taxi in Washington, D.C. may look ordinary from the outside. Through the rearview mirror, though, Special sees something more. She sees opportunities arranged by God. She sees people at crossroads. She sees moments where the Lord can reach someone through a stranger willing to obey.

That is what gives her story its power. She carries a hidden life with God that overflows into everyday encounters.

The riders she still carries in prayer

Some stories have stayed especially close to her heart.

One young woman told her she had been dabbling in witchcraft and had experienced something so frightening that it shook her deeply. Special spoke plainly with her, explaining the spiritual danger of what she had opened herself to and giving thanks that the Lord had brought interruption into her path. The young woman shared that she had stepped away from it.

Another rider still weighs heavily on her heart.

This woman had endured repeated abuse from early childhood and carried deep bitterness and anger. She was also battling cancer. During the ride, she poured out her pain and wrestled aloud with the question of how such suffering could ever fit into the story of a loving God.

Special ministered to her with compassion. She spoke about the Lord as healer, comforter, and keeper. She urged her to release the bitterness that was consuming her and to let God begin healing the deep wounds within. The woman remained deeply hardened in that moment, yet the encounter stayed with Special long after the ride ended.

She still prays for her.

That says so much about who she is. She carries a shepherd’s heart. She remembers the wounded. She lifts them before the Lord long after they leave her car. For her, ministry continues in prayer.

Obedience that has been lived, not just spoken

As she spoke, another theme kept rising to the surface: obedience.

Special returns to that word often because her own life has been shaped by it.

She shared about her marriage and the way the Lord dealt with her heart through that relationship. She was married for more than twenty years before her husband passed in 2019. During those years, God taught her profound lessons about love, endurance, and surrender. At one point, the Lord showed her that her husband was an assignment. That revelation changed how she understood both love and obedience.

She learned that love carries weight. It calls for faithfulness, surrender, and a deep dependence on God. That process formed her. It gave substance to the words she now speaks to others about relationships, forgiveness, humility, and staying yielded to the Lord.

When people enter her car angry, hurt, reactive, or bitter, she speaks as someone who has walked through the refining fire herself. Her counsel carries the sound of experience. She has wrestled. She has obeyed. She has seen the Lord prove faithful in the middle of hard things.

Know the voice

When I asked her what she feels the Lord most wants people to hear through her life and ministry, her answer came quickly and clearly: “Know the voice that is speaking to you.”

That message sits at the center of everything for her.

Know the voice of God. Discern what is speaking to your heart. Follow the voice that leads with truth, holiness, wisdom, and love. Then obey what He says.

She also spoke strongly about the way that voice shapes a person’s speech. She grieves when people who claim to know the Lord speak with cruelty, vulgarity, or contempt. Many of her passengers have heard her gently ask for a different tone in the car. She sees words as a reflection of what fills the heart, and she believes that a life formed by God begins to sound like Him.

That conviction runs deep in her.

She listens for His voice. She seeks to obey it. She wants others to know it for themselves. In a world full of noise, confusion, and competing voices, that message feels both timely and timeless.

A hidden yes with holy weight

What stays with me most about Special is the quiet strength of her life.

She carries a hidden posture. She loves the behind-the-scenes place. She keeps the focus on the Lord. She speaks with the kind of sincerity that comes from walking closely with Him through suffering, healing, grief, recovery, and daily obedience. She has turned ordinary spaces into places of ministry simply by remaining available.

A sidewalk became a pulpit. A taxi became a sanctuary.A rearview mirror became the frame for divine appointments.

I expected Washington to hold meaningful moments for me, and it certainly did. Yet one of the richest came after I had left the museum and was simply trying to get back to my hotel. There, in the front seat of a taxi, sat a woman with a Bible on her dashboard and a life full of testimony.

I had asked the Lord what He had for me there. Part of His answer came through Special. And through the rearview mirror, I saw it.  

Amanda Cheatwood is the founder of Revival | Here + There. Through original features, interviews, and editorial storytelling, she brings readers into stories of faith, healing, and revival, with a heart for capturing the ways God meets people in both ordinary and extraordinary moments. To learn more, visit RevivalMagazine.global.