When I was in the 11th grade, my sister got married. It was a beautiful wedding and she was a gorgeous bride and her fiance’ was a handsome young man. He did, however, show his hiney at the rehearsal dinner… no he wasn’t rude or anything, but his pants split from the cleaners starching and pressing them too hard, I guess. It was the funniest thing!
Her new husband was a pastor of a small country church and they were going to live in the parsonage. (I could describe this parsonage, but that would be a whole different blog… lol) We got my sister’s stuff all loaded up in my dad’s truck and in my mom’s car. The plan was for Dad to drive his truck with Mom, and for me to drive Mom’s car with Ike, our dog. Mom had a big old tank for a car, (it was an Oldsmobile something or other, and it was big). The trip was to take 2 to 2 1/2 hours or so (I can’t remember exactly). I was following Mom and Dad, and Dad had told me that if Ike needed to potty, to flash my headlights and they would pull over. (This was before we all had cell phones.)
We had been on the road for a while and we were going through a town called Campti, Louisiana. I was be-bopping to Milli Vanilli, and Ike was asleep next to me. I like to think I am a good driver, I check all my mirrors a lot (no, not the one on the visor…lol). I checked my rear view mirror and there was no one behind me but something (I’m going to take a wild guess and say it was God) told me to look in the rear view mirror again about a minute later. When I looked in it this time, there was a white Lincoln so close on my tail that I could not see the grille. All I saw was the white car and big fuzzy dice hanging on the mirror. I had the cruise control on, but I pressed on the gas to try to go faster, unfortunately, Mom’s car hesitated and actually slowed a little, when this happened, the car hit my bumper. I was so scared! I didn’t know what to do, so I started flashing my headlights over and over, but it seemed like Daddy didn’t see me flashing my lights, because they kept going. I pulled over and by the time I put the car in park, the man from the white Lincoln was at my door trying to get the door open. Praise God I had my doors locked!
Ike was going crazy in my lap trying to get to the window and to the man. (Ike was a Maltese, but I guarantee he would have tried to eat that man up!) I was scared and crying and I didn’t know what to do! Mom and Dad were way down the road, this man was trying to get the car door open, and I had a ferocious dog in my lap! Finally Mom and Dad had turned around and were pulling up on the side of the road opposite from the side of the road I had pulled over. Dad immediately got out of the car and started coming toward us, which scared me even more, because my sweet daddy was a small man, and the man trying to get to me was tall, very scary looking, and apparently very high. I was so scared he had some kind of weapon and was going to use it on my daddy.
When Daddy got over to us he asked, “What happened?!” and the man went to the front of Mom’s car and told my dad that I had hit him. Please understand, not one single inch of the front of Mom’s car had touched the man’s car. He hit me from behind. My dad then came to me and I rolled down the window just a couple of inches, (because I was still scared the man would come back to me, also I did’t want Ike to get out) and asked me what happened. When I told him what happened, the man got into his car and left in a big hurry. After the man left, we noticed an old truck had pulled over a little ways behind the white car. My dad went over to the truck and in it was a nice little older couple. They had seen the whole thing and were watching to make sure I was safe. After it was all over, I was so upset, that Mom drove her car the rest of the way. By the way, the only damage was on the back bumper. Mom’s car had a strip of rubber on her bumpers, and on the rubber strip on the back, there were 2 marks where his bumper hit me.
Later as I was reflecting on everything that happened, I realized that God knew this was going to happen and He had prepared a plan to save me ahead of time. He had also sent people to watch over me. The first part of His plan was Ike. When Daddy told me to flash my lights if we needed to pull over for Ike. I would never have thought to flash my lights to stop my parents. I probably would have honked the horn, and at the distance they were at when they finally saw the lights flashing, they would not have heard the horn. The second part of His plan, was the fact that I had locked the doors. I never locked the doors when I drove, but I suppose He told me to lock the doors on this particular drive. The third part of His plan was that He had sent the little old couple to watch over me.
See, even when we don’t realize it, God protects us. I can not stand getting behind slow traffic. That is one of my pet peeves! One day I was complaining to my mom about being behind a slowpoke, and she told me something that has stuck with me ever since. She said, ” Sara Beth, sometimes God puts slow traffic in front of you for different reasons. Sometimes the reason could be that if you were driving at your normal speed, you might get into an accident and the slowpoke in front of you is slowing you down just enough to keep you safe.” She mentioned some other reasons, but that is the one that has always stuck with me.
PSALM 140:4 KEEP ME SAFE LORD, FROM THE HANDS OF THE WICKED, PROTECT ME FROM THE VIOLENT WHO DEVISE WAYS TO TRIP MY FEET.
My Journey, Giving God the Glory 