A Nudge

In the movie No Country for Old Men, the genuine psychopath Anton Chigurh approaches a store clerk and makes brief small talk with the man. After a few moments, Chigurh gets straight to the point. He asks the clerk, “What’s the most you ever lost in a coin toss?” The clerk is quite confused as he sees Chigurh pull a quarter out of his pocket, toss it into the air, and tells him to “call it.”

The clerk remains perplexed—even asking Chigurh, “For what? We need to know what we’re calling it for here.” The viewer, understanding what the clerk did not, knows that Anton Chigurh is going to kill the clerk if he does not answer correctly. The store clerk grows concerned. Tension builds.

Chigurh tells the man, “You need to call it. I can’t call it for you…it’s either heads or tails and you have to say.” As Anton Chigurh continues to play the game with the clerk, the anxiety of the man is apparent, but he eventually makes the call and says, “Alright. Heads, then.” In dramatic fashion, Chigurh removes his hand from the quarter on the counter, and reveals that it is in fact heads—to which Chigurh tells the man, “Well done!” This is one of the most riveting scenes of the last several years. If you haven’t seen the movie, I can’t recommend it enough. While it is a very niche genre, it has aspects that everyone can enjoy.

The old man, who was the store clerk, knew something was off about Chigurh, but did not understand the gravity of what he stood to lose or gain with the coin toss. He was playing for his life. He had a 50% chance of being killed by Chigurh and, had he called tails, Chigurh would have ended his life without remorse.

There are two lines in this scene that resonate with me. “What’s the most you ever lost in a coin toss?” and “You need to call it. I can’t call it for you.” As I think about how much I enjoyed this movie and in particular this scene, I can’t help but think of several life lessons that draw parallels to this it.

In 2012, my wife, Ashley and I were expecting our second child. We had approached the end of the pregnancy, and there were several times where we ended up in the hospital with false labor. Oh, those dreaded Braxton-Hicks contractions! One evening we were dining at Texas Roadhouse. Everything seemed normal as could be. It was a Friday evening, I had just gotten off of work, and we were looking forward to our weekend together.

As we dined, Ashley began to feel those Braxton-Hicks contractions again. I felt that something just wasn’t right this time, but I knew that she knew her body better than I did. She suggested we stay and finish dinner and if we needed to go to the hospital afterward, then we would. Shortly after we agreed to finish dinner, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that we needed to leave at that moment and go to the hospital.

I continued to wrestle internally, but in those moments, I felt God speak to me and tell me, “Take your wife to the hospital and go now.” Like most people who often hear that gentle nudge, I dismissed it as just a thought that I simply had in my own mind. Shortly after, I heard it again, “Take your wife to the hospital and go now.” This time, I listened. I asked for my check even before our waiter brought us the food. We cashed out and left.

At the hospital, they put us in a room. No sooner than Ashley changed into her hospital gown, she told me that she was feeling ill again and as she was talking to me, she passed out. I rushed down to the nurse’s station and told them what had happened. They rushed in and put monitors on Ashley and the baby. It soon became apparent that things were not looking good.

As the doctor arrived, she was giving instructions to the nurses in the hallway. As I eavesdropped, I heard what no parent wants to hear. She told the nurses to call the anesthesiologist and get him to the hospital and to give him 90 seconds. I then heard what broke my heart, “We have to get this baby out or she’s going to have a dead baby.” I honestly doubt that the anesthesiologist received his designated 90 seconds from the doctor before she and her team rushed into the room and took Ashley back for an emergency C-Section—no anesthesia, or anything.

A few minutes later, a nurse arrived in the room and told me that Ashley and the baby (our son, Brayden) were doing well and that the emergency C-section was a success. I couldn’t help but cry and thank God for his provision in these critical moments of our lives. Later that day, I explained to the doctor that I had heard God’s voice telling me to go to the hospital. She gave the glory to God in that very moment telling me, “That was divine providence. If you hadn’t listened to God, your baby would not have made it and your wife may have died, too.”

Ashley had a placental abruption and timing of the surgery was critical. I knew in that moment at Texas Roadhouse that God was speaking directly to me as I heard him say, “Take your wife to the hospital and go now.” That obedience to God’s voice saved the life of my son and my wife. In that moment, I had a 50/50 chance of making the right call—similar to the clerk who was encouraged by Anton Chigurh to, “Call it.” I could have lost 2 of the 3 people in my life who I hold so dear.

Chigurh may have intended harm for the old man in his coin toss, but God intended good for our situation. His gentle, yet persistent nudge to get Ashley to the hospital saved the lives of two people I love very much and I am so grateful to him to this day that he intervened in such a critical moment in our lives.