Dad preaching, Part 1

Thank you to all who have been asking about the weekend. Thought I'd just start blogging, in segments, so I can answer everyone at once. My mind is swirling with so much...so I thought I'd just do it in chunks at a time.

We headed down to my parents home, Friday night about 6 p.m. God spared our whole family from a very tragic accident. It was the strangest weather pattern. It was lightly snowing when we left, and increased as we headed south. All of a sudden, the roads were terrible. We were in the left lane, the roads were covered in black ice, people seemed to be driving either too slow or too fast. While in the left lane, I saw a SUV coming from the opposite side of the freeway headed towards our car. I gripped the handle on my door and cried out, "Jesus!".

My husband is very calm in a crisis, thankfully. He just slowly started to vere to the right lane. Looking back, that wouldn't have even saved us. Here's what happened..

The SUV was from the other side of the freeway, headed north. They lost control, hit the ditch, headed (west) right for us on the freeway. It was going very fast, and then it hit a huge wire fence. We were so close, we heard the crunch. If the fence wouldn't have been there, Randy said it would've hit us right where he and Faith were, going however fast it was going. We looked back in our rearview mirror, we couldn't stop, but there were lots of cars on the other side of the road going in the ditch. I think I shook for about 30 minutes after that. It was so close. And, as we drove south, we didn't see any other fences. Why was that fence right there, at that exact spot? (We think that they were okay because they didn't roll, hopefully their air bags were working.)

Then, about five miles down the road, the snow stopped, and gradually, the roads were perfect. So, we thought that the drivers weren't prepared for what they were headed into. Perfect weather, a little snow, and then icy road conditions and nobody expected that to happen out of nowhere.

Later...in the church service on Sunday, the congregation sang the song, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord". I have a hard time singing the part, "he gives and takes away...". I actually don't sing that part. I believe it, I trust God, but I just can't sing it. I always close my eyes and just pray. On Sunday, when it came to that part, my eyes were closed and I saw the near accident again in my head. This thought came to my mind, "It wasn't your time. I didn't want the accident to happen. I'm in control of it all." And I had this sense of a loving Father watching over me, allowing cancer, allowing my Gracie to only live an hour, allowing my family to be at the church to hear my dad preach. It all comes from Him. He is good, He is faithful no matter what happens. Through the good and the bad. It was such a freeing moment. A moment to remind me to rest in His sovereignty, and to know He is there for all of it. He loves us. He really does. Nothing happens to me outside of His plan. And, deep within, the healing of my dad's cancer grows just a little bit more.