In this midst of this dramatic weather change we packed up the car to head home. It was cloudy, cold, and windy. About two hours into the drive we encountered a detour with a bridge under construction at hwy 84 and Interstate 20. The detour had us get on the freeway going west, exit the freeway, u turn, and get back on the freeway going east bypassing the bridge construction. It was in the construction detour that things did not work out so well.
We followed the detour and exited the freeway behind an 18 wheel truck. As we approached the stop sign to turn and go under the freeway there was a flurry of detour signs including large orange flags on top of the stop sign giving us a multitude of warnings and instructions. As the truck in front of us slowly pulled out and turned right onto the narrow 2 lane farm road we pulled up to the stop sign to turn left. A second or two after we got to the stop sign a new white Suburban pulled up to the stop sign across from us. My daughter, who was driving, asked whose turn it was and I told her I think it is our turn. She sat there for a moment looking at the white Suburban and I told her "it's our turn so we can go". She hesitated for a moment more and then pulled out. As we began our turn left under the bridge we heard a short honk followed by the nose of our car smashing into the side of an old Suburban that was coming down the road at about 50 miles per hour. The nose of our car sunk into the side of suburban which grabbed our car and spun us like a top- we spun almost a complete 360 in the narrow 2 lane road without bumping either curb. The old Suburban screeched to a stop in the left lane midway under the bridge. We had both stayed on the road and missed the bridge columns as well as the culverts that were on either side of the road under the bridge.
Scary, scary, scary! We quickly took stock and realized we were ok but the car was injured. We discovered it would still drive so we pulled it off into a gas station and tried to take in what had happened. As we looked back at the stop sign we realized the one thing we had missed in the flurry of flags and detour directions was the small white sign that said 'cross traffic does not stop'. We spent the next hour processing things with the police, our insurance company, and trying to decide if we would need a tow truck. We discovered the nearest place to rent a car was 45 miles away so we made the car drivable enough to get it to Abilene by pulling off the parts that were hanging down into the front wheel.
After dropping the car off at the body shop, getting a rental car, and eating some lunch we were finally back on the road again. As we drove we processed what happened talking about the importance of never listening to anyone else in the car who is giving you bad advice and instead making driving decisions based upon your own observations. But the more significant conversation centered around the spiritual issues at hand. We talked about how both of us had been prompted to be in prayer about our trip home and had prayed asking God to give us a safe trip. My daughter had prayed asking God to keep us out of a wreck which prompted her to ask why God allowed us to get in a wreck even though she had asked him to keep us out of a wreck. As we continued to talk and process we began to realize that although God had not kept us out of a wreck he may have worked to save our lives. If we had pulled out a fraction of a second earlier instead of hitting the side of the old Suburban we would have been been in the path of a big Suburban going 50 miles an hour. It would have most likely t-boned us in the passenger front door where I was sitting. It would then have likely thrown us into the columns on one side of the bridge and knocked the Suburban into the columns on the other side of the bridge causing significant injuries to all of us.
We began to clue in on the holy brain fart that my daughter had after I told her we should be able to go. I remember glancing over at her and wondering why she had frozen up for a second... had she not done that we would have pulled out in front of the Suburban instead of bouncing off the side of the Suburban. It really appears that God used her weakness, freezing up for a second, to compensate for my backseat driving producing a bad wreck instead of a catastrophic collision. Had God completely spared us from the wreck neither my daughter nor I would have learned anything. We would not have realized the significance of what He had spared us from. We would not have learned some valuable lessons about driving and back seat driving. We would have instead continued down the road griping about an old Suburban that was going too fast down a small road and the confusing nature of the signage in the construction zone.
What occurred has the fingerprints of God upon it; using our weakness to reveal His glory, restraining how bad things could have been, and prompting by the Holy Spirit to invite God to work. Pretty cool.
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