A) As most of you know, last October I was in a black-ice-related car accident that totaled my car.
B) Since we live in Ohio, we’ve had many, MANY days since then with bad roads. The whole east-central portion of the country knows what I’m talking about, I think.
C) And guess what. This winter my 18-year-old has had to drive herself and her brother to school every day – over an hour of driving every day – on a combination of 70mph freeway and snowy, windswept country roads. She’s only had her license for a year. She also has had to drive both of her siblings and 4 other cousins to teen group late at night a number of times because if I drive them, then one of the kids has to stay home due to not enough seats in the car. That means a LOT of time on the roads for an inexperienced driver.
The one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy has used A+B+C to mess with my head… trying to fill me with fear and mental images that I’d rather not share. It was getting bad enough that I asked my dear friend to keep me in prayer over it.
But right now, I am currently sitting here, feeling so much peace because of how God out-maneuvers the defeated one and gives us peace.
I keep a chat/instant messaging account open all day as I work, and my two high-schoolers often chat me now and again from school, because yes, they are amazing, and they still like to talk to their mom from school throughout the day and tell me how they did on a test or ask me to pray for them if something’s not going well.
So this morning, my daughter left for school in negative temperatures on a road that is often not that good. It’s a state route that people die on every year because somebody pulled out in front of somebody else going 55mp or faster. On top of that, the winds make the snows drift from the corn fields across the roads… one day last week it was so bad that she crept home at 20mph with her flashers on and kept me on the phone hansfree bluetooth part of the way because she could hardly see where the edges of the roads were and she was was so unsettled.
But today, after my daughter got to school, she started chatting me. Little did she know it, but the praise report that she was about to share with me was actually God speaking to me and reassuring me.
She started by excitedly telling me some little tidbits of school news, and then…
There’s this one spot on 598 where cars pull out in front of me all the time. I’ve only pulled out of there once or twice, but it is hard to see, so I usually slow down some there. Usually I have to put on the brakes to not hit them, but not enough to scare me or anything. Today, a person pulled out, it felt like, right in front of me. I knew the car behind me was quite a ways back, so I slammed on the brakes. I still almost hit them because they were so close, but I think it may have been God, because I had already just looked behind me and knew there was no car on my tail, and somehow, I wasn’t scared. I didn’t miss a line of the song I was singing, and I somehow managed to catch my bag that was sitting in the passenger seat without it falling everywhere. And there wasn’t a speck of ice on the road in that spot, even though there’s an open field there, and it’s usually one of the worst spots.
I love today already.I got in the car and they were playing “Drops in the Ocean,” and they played a bunch of my favorite songs all the way to school. And then there was the car pulling out thing, and even though I had to go out to my car again from school (because my cord was the only thing that fell out of my bag, and I didn’t realize it,) I’m still in a great mood.Today is just one of those days that’s good I guess just because the Creator of the Universe loves me.
I underlined the parts that were God speaking to me, her mama, too… because as I was reading this, His reassurance filled my spirit that He is taking care of my kids. He’s teaching my daughter to be careful on dangerous roads. He’s putting songs into her heart and carrying her through dangerous situations. He’s reassuring her of His love and making her know His presence and love.
He is so very, very faithful!
This is the song she mentioned: