Random Things

Today I was thinking about a lot of things. This is probably going to be one of those rambling posts. . so bear with me.
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I was thinking about the blizzard that we went through at Christmas time. We were driving along just fine. . slow, but fine. It was really cold and the snow and wind were blowing but we could still see. When up ahead there's a car coming and he's flashing his lights. Aaron had enough wisdom to slow down. Just past that truck, the snow was blowing so hard that we couldn't see the front of our car -- total white out. Even in what should have been a very scary situation, there was a peace in our car that we didn't quite understand. Payton & Evan were watching a movie and Jaxon was snoozin' away (which was a rare).

Aaron and I were trying to squint to see the road. . . the car in front of us. . . if there were cars behind us . . . the yellow stripe . . . the white lines. . . anything really. When all of the sudden, the snow seemed to be blocked by something and it allowed us to see better. On the right, there was a massive collision. One pick-up and one semi-truck in the ditch. We didn't see any people, though. Just feet away on the left side was another pick-up or 2 in the ditch. We decide to keep moving so that nobody comes up behind us and smashes into us just because they can't see. Besides, our car was completely loaded and we didn't have room for anyone.

As we kept driving, it kept getting worse. On the right was a black car . . maybe SUV. . . and another semi-truck. Both are crumpled up. The windshield on the SUV was completely busted out. The other windows were gone, too. There was a man standing there trying to pull these legs from the passenger side window. The hole was really small due to the car being all smashed in. Can this person be alive. . really? If so, can they really fit through that hole? Here she comes with just a scratch on her face. She stands to her feet and all she has on is a thin leather jacket, a silk shirt, a pair of jeans, and some high heels. It's freezing outside but there isn't anywhere to go.

We get stalled in the road because nobody in front of us is moving forward. This is when fear set in. If there was someone coming behind us, they wouldn't be able to see us before it was too late. We tried to get off on the shoulder, but wrecked vehicles were everywhere. We sat there for what seemed like an eternity watching people walking around outside and praying that nobody was coming from either direction. If there was another wreck, it could literally wipe out the people standing around outside waiting for help -- I didn't want to see that.

Finally, we start to move and get past all of the wreckage. As we get through all the mess, we meet another truck that is speeding and heading right for the mess. Aaron starts flashing his lights and honking the horn trying to get that guy to slow down. Our minds went a million directions thinking about what would have happened if that truck hadn't slowed down. Then we see one firetruck and one ambulance headed to the wreck with their lights flashing. We knew they were going to need more than that to take care of those people. But we felt less than helpful. And, we had to do what was best for our family. Now that there was help on the way, we had to just get us to a safe place.

We decide to detour to Aaron's grandpa's house until the storm blows over. It postponed our plans and frustrated my day. We were late for Christmas.

We went out later with snow chains on the tires that Aaron's grandpa let us borrow. We get to the intersection and there sits a police car. The policeman gets out and tells us that we can't go on. You can't get into Pampa and you can't get out. All the roads have been shut down due to drifts. We point out that we have snow chains and it doesn't matter. Nobody is getting through. So, we turn around.

On our way back to his grandpa's house, Aaron decides to go down a dirt road and try to go around. We see a few places where the drifts have almost blown across the road. We just wanted to get to our destination. We get back to the highway and the road are clear. We drive for a little ways with the chains still on, but soon stopped to take them off. The road was just fine. So fine that we could drive the speed limit without any problems.

We get to our destination just a few hours late, but we arrived. Later we saw on the news that it was a 26 car pile-up where one man died. We talk about it all that night. We're both thanking God that we made it through. The kids had no idea what we just lived through. I like it that way. We talked about the "what if's" and "did you see that?" kind of things. We didn't let our minds go to certain places in the "what if's categories". It was just too much. But we made sure to let people know that God kept us safe and sound. There are no doubts in our minds that angels were all around our vehicle that day.
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There a ton of analogies going through my head right now about life. Lots of them. Lots of them I'm walking out right now. Not sure why I posted this. . . I think it was just to get it out of my head, even though I didn't list what's going on right now with me. Lots of good things. Lots of frustrating things. Lots of "what if" kinds of things. But in the middle of it all, I know God is there with a plan to get me to my destination . . . even if I have to stop for a while and wait or maybe find a different way to get me there.