One recent morning, I awakened at 1:30 am with a sense of urgency to pray for my son. I prayed and climbed back in bed. It was no better. I prayed in bed. At 2 am, I got up again. As it turned out, I was up for the day. The sense of danger for my son was so strong that I ended up praying off and on all day.
By lunchtime, I was overwhelmed. Something was wrong.
I texted him. He was fine. Nothing was wrong.
I kept praying. I texted my prayer partner to pray. I prayed some more.
Finally, at 3:05 pm, nearly ten hours after my first sense of danger, I received a text from Ryan. A crazy thing had happened. He was driving (in his tiny Nissan roadster) when an 18-wheeler passed him, had a blow out, and blew the tire onto his car. The tire missed his windshield (which would likely have killed him) and hit his front bumper instead.
"Did it scare you, Ryan," I asked.
"No, Ma'am. It happened too fast to scare me, but it sure surprised me."
There's damage to the bumper that will need to be repaired, but Ryan managed to navigate to the side of the road without crashing. He made his way to a service station and the man there, who was so nice, gave him several long zip-ties. Ryan, a modern-day MacGyver if there ever was one, zip-tied his car back together until he could report his accident and arrange for repair.
According to roadtreking.com, highway debris causes more than 25,000 accidents and at least 100 deaths each year in North America. When I called the insurance company to report his accident, the woman who answered asked how much of the car was damaged in the crash.
"He didn't crash," I told her. "He said he just pulled off on the side of the road."
Most of the time, she said, when a flying tire-remnant hits a car, it causes a wreck. She was very surprised this one did not.
I'm not surprised at all.
The Lord has made known His salvation... Psalm 98:2 nasb
Our God, who is eternally present and sees the past and the future, knew about the accident to come at 1:30 that morning. He invited me into His divine preparations and I accepted the invitation. I can't begin to tell you how often I've been thankful for that.
Lest you misunderstand, let me make it clear that Ryan wasn't spared because of his worried mama. Ryan was spared because a loving God intervened on his behalf.
"He cares for you..." 1 Peter 5:7 nasb
On that particular day, at that particular time, God allowed me to glimpse His provision, His tender loving care. There are many days, in fact most days, when I do not glimpse His provision and tender loving care in such graphic detail.
My failure to recognize God's care does not negate its presence nor His provision.
As disciples, we serve a loving, knowing God who cares for us with more tenderness, more love than we can imagine. Look around you today. Try to count the blessings you see, then count the unseen blessings that, though less tangible, are no less real.
There's a song I learned as a child. "Count your many blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God has done."
Indeed. Count your many blessings today and thank Him for all He has done.
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In case you missed any of the past week's posts, here are the links: The Problem With Phone Calls, How to Recognize Good News, Removing the Callus, Refillable Nespresso capsules, The New Normal, and The Blessing Disguised as Coincidence.
#highwaydebris #spared #handofGod #blessed #disciple #JesusChrist #grateful
The most read post of the past week: Removing the Callus.
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