There are times in my life where I have been asked to do something or been confronted with a situation or have stood at the crossroads of a large decision and I’ve wondered if God is nudging me one direction or another. And there have been times where something has happened and I wonder if that was time and chance or if it was God stepping in.

Sometimes I wonder.
Sometimes I don’t.

I don’t wonder if God sent me my eldest son. He absolutely did. There were years of infertility, adoption, and then crazy super fertility. I don’t question this. He had a plan for my family. I hug them everyday with thanksgiving. Even if I was older than dirt when I got started.

I don’t wonder if my dad’s alive today by accident. Last Thursday, God stepped in. You can argue if you want to, but it won’t do you any good.

I was putting my kids in bed last Thursday night. They were mostly settled and reading upstairs when my phone rang. It was my mom calling. I almost picked up the phone in a typically obnoxious way to tell her that I had a bone to pick with her over the 4 year old Girl Scout cookies my parents had tried to pawn off on me that very day. I know I shouldn’t have eaten one. Trust me. I paid for it with the 36 hour taste of motor oil in my mouth. If you’ve ever wondered about the shelf life of a Girl Scout cookie then you should call me. Don’t keep those bad boys too long.

Anyway, I didn’t pick up the phone and pick the bone with her that I’m picking right now. I just said “Hello?” At that point she told me that my dad had been in a serious car accident. The breath I sucked in that moment took too long to let out and it took too long for her to tell me he was okay. But he was indeed okay. And that’s the part of the story worth telling.

His words are better than mine. He was there. He was saved in a very mighty way that night.
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“Oh LORD, get me through this one……”
> This will be a different kind of story this week, but the story must be told. I was following a semi truck, driving my little Mazda Miata, heading North on I-75 at about 65 mph on Thursday night. The truck braked suddenly, so I moved to the left lane to avoid his problem. He lurched to the left, started to jack-knife and almost toppled right into me. With nowhere to go, I lost control, shot under him, under the semi trailer, coming out the other side, slid to the right, across the other lanes, down an embankment and came to a stop in a ditch. As I was approaching the semi, about to crash into him, I must have bent down…and I called out to the Lord for help. The impact smashed the windshield throwing glass everywhere; I later found glass in my shoes. As the car came to a stop, it was eerily quiet…and dark. I was alone, the truck didn’t stop and no one else could be seen. Then I looked ahead about 150 yards where a lone car had pulled over. I got out of my car, could walk, in fact, I didn’t have a scratch on me. I had just had a major wreck, drove under a semi, and didn’t even have a scratch. Now you are seeing why this story must be told. I called out to the Lord for HELP!…..and got it in a dramatic way.

I walked up to the stopped car where a woman and her 9-year-old daughter were standing, looking at me as though I were a ghost. She was on the phone with 911; I told her not to send an ambulance. When off the phone, she told me that she saw the whole thing, that the semi almost rolled, apparently trying to avoid something ahead. I told her that I must have ducked, and began praying as I crashed into the truck. She said, “God is so good!” What kind of lesson that must have been for that 9-year-old daughter. And what a lesson to me….

Deputies came, followed by a trooper and a fire truck. Everyone was amazed that I was alive. I was more amazed because I had just seen and felt the impact with the underside of the semi; a major crash. The car was towed; might be totalled. The trooper took me home and I was alive and
well.

Romans 8:28 says “All things work together for good for those that love God…”

Psalm 119:65 “You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to Your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe your commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. You are good, and do good….”
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I reflected that night on so many things. I thought about how close we came to having a funeral at Thanksgiving. I thought about the fact that I would have been the last one to have seen my dad since he brought my son home from school that day. I thought about the fact that I would have forever felt guilty for asking him to drive my son home if he’d been killed while running errands AFTER helping me. Irrational though that may be, I still would have struggled with that.

How does a car get hit by a semi, go UNDER that semi and out the other side, land in a ditch, and get completely totaled without one bruise, one scratch getting on the person driving?

That’s God.
I am thankful.