So a few days ago, I had a day that completely changed my life. Something happened that I had never even thought possible.

I have grown up around guns. Cross-bolts, lever actions, handguns. I had used them all and had been taught the right way to field strip them in order to clean them. I could practically do it with it my eyes closed.

However, the other day it took me by surprise. Apparently I had forgotten to check the chamber before I went to drop the upper slide, as I dropped it a bullet was fired from the chamber and went through my thigh.

It was my friend Collin and I sitting at the table, we had just finished lunch and I went to clean the handgun after a day on the mountain.

As the bullet went through my leg I stared at the smoking gun and watched it fall from my trembling hands. My mind went blank and I just stared at the hole in my jeans.

That's when Collin became my guardian angel. I couldn't think, I couldn't act, and I couldn't move, but he acted as quickly as a trained professional. He pulled off his belt and wrapped it around my leg and pulled it tight. He picked me up and carried me to the pickup and took off for the hospital which was a half hour away.

The half hour was a nightmare, my leg was bleeding like crazy from the front and the back and my mind was floating in and out. I kept feeling like I was going to pass out but Collin wouldn't let me.

He held onto my hand and kept reminding me to stay with him, and that everything was going to be okay. I wouldn't have made it through that car ride without him.

As I was sitting in the ER thinking about everything that had happened, I realized something.

I had a lot to be thankful for, but the thing I was most thankful for was the friend that God had used as my guardian angel. Of all the people who could have been there with me at that time, God had put the one with me He knew I would need. He put the person there who would be able to pick me up and keep me calm despite the daze that I was in.

I know my guardian angel was there that day to guide the bullet, but I also know that God gave me a friend to be my true guardian angel, and for that I will always be thankful.