Close calls! It’s enough to make you wipe the sweat from your brow. A couple weekends ago, my Mom and I were driving back to our hotel after a great day with my daughter—her granddaughter—and family.
Daughter’s town and surrounding towns were full up at the hotels because of a soft ball tournament, but we managed to squeak into one in the next small town. Coming back, after a full day of activities, we looked around at the scenery in the falling dusk. The road was straight and because of the late hour, we had the road to ourselves. The speed limit was 70. Easy.
I was driving Mom’s car, and our destination town was directly in front of us. We chatted about the fun we’d had, how the grandkids were growing and what we planned to do tomorrow, when—all of a sudden—there in front of us was an SUV. I had to hit the brakes. Where did that SUV come from? There were no side roads that we could see, but it was dark now. Still, I had not seen anything traveling towards our road in the dark, either.
The SUV was crawling along, I had to slow down considerably, then suddenly it made a right turn! It looked like it went around the corner in slow motion. That’s how I knew the road made a turn there. I stood on the brakes, turned the wheel and we skidded to a stop next to the SUV. In the wrong lane. Good thing no incoming traffic got in our way.
Our hearts pounded and everything seemed to stop with the car, including our breathing. But no, the breathing continued. That is the whole point.
If not for God’s angel, we might be in heaven today, well a couple weeks ago. Where did that SUV come from? How did it get there? Why was it going so slow on a 70 mph road? Did God put it just there to warn us the road curved?
No indicators were there for a curve in the road. No reflectors, no guardrail, no sign. Well, ok, there was a sign. After the turn in the curve. What good is that in the dark on a supposedly straight road? I ask you! The SUV made another turn off the road, and we went on to our hotel to sweet dreams.
The next morning, we examined the road as we headed back again to Daughter’s town. As we had noted in the dark, no indicators told us the road curved. No warnings. We saw ruts in the embankment indicating other cars had gone off the road and down into the creek. I’m not sure if the creek was part of a wetland or not, but I could see lots of vegetation growing.
Does God watch out for us? Yep. Scriptures tell us our days are numbered by God before there are any. I believe it. If it is not time, a close call will be just that. A close call. If it is time, the embankment will be there and we’ll go over it. God is in charge. All the time. I’m glad of it.
“And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them,” Psalm 139:16.
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