God is in the Driver's seat! Or, God is the air bag! Maybe it's best just to say God is in conrtol!!!

Imagine this: You are riding your bike home and are 3/4^th of the way home and finished with all of the uphill work. Now is the best part, you hop on one of the main streets in town and head down the last quarter mile stretch which is pretty much all downhill. There are no cars behind you as you quickly gain speed to about 30 mph with fresh air rushing through your clothes on a beautiful sunny September day. A car is stopped at an approaching intersection waiting to turn left to go the opposite direction of what you are going. Unfortunately the car doesn’t see you. They pull out, see you, stop when you are but 15 feet away from their car, and completely block your lane. In that split second you must chose between hitting the pulled-out car or swerving into oncoming traffic. Instinctively you chose the stationary car blocking your lane. You squeeze the breaks as hard as you can, but really how much can you slow down in 15 feet. You hit the front of the car. Your inertia and the force of the collision propel you over the car and an additional 10 feet past the car. Your bike mostly travels with you as your feet were in the toe clips. Remarkably, you summersault while airborne and land on you back, well, really your backpack, and your elbow, and rotate to your right side. You can’t breath, and your elbow is in excruciating pain. People are surrounding you, asking if you are ok, if you need to go to the hospital. Imagine what might be going through your head?

Well, I’ll tell you what went through mine. I thought that I would shortly pass out and wake up in a hospital with all sorts of tubes and machines hooked up to me; I thought I might have a collapsed lung; I thought I might have a serious back injury; I thought my bones might be sticking out of my elbow; I thought something internally must be ruptured after something like that. My first instinct was to fight to stay conscious so I didn’t go unconscious for who knows how long.

I slowly stood up with air slowly and painfully re-entering my lungs. Almost too frightened to look I stole a glimpse of my seemingly still intact elbow. I reached to pull my bike and myself off of the road. Amazingly, I was “ok”.

Now, thoughts of God’s grace and care were starting to fill my head. As I was telling Jori later on when I arrived home I couldn’t hold back the tears as I was still pretty scared, but also filled with the profound sense that was God watching over me. I could think of a hundred of things that could have gone wrong. I could have been on a flat road instead of going downhill, in which case I probably would not have completed my summersault and would have landed squarely on my head. I could have broken my back; I could have ruptured internal organs; I could have broken other bones; I could be in a coma right now; heck, I could be dead.

Actually, God’s grace started earlier in the week—though I sure didn’t envision it would work out this way. Earlier in the week a friend was having her laptop looked at as it was not working properly. Technically, the laptop made a pit stop in with the technician about a year and a half ago. The previous tech couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it, and it essentially was left as forgotten. Well, a new tech came along and thought he would give it a shot to repair it. Part of the reason it couldn’t be properly looked at is because the CD-ROM drive was missing. However, it was found last Thursday, so I delivered the CD-ROM to the tech and he informed me that the hard drive was pretty much shot. Hmmm, I began to ponder. It just so happens that my good Japanese friend had a nice computer that he totaled it when he dropped it and shattered the monitor. So, I thought I could use his intact hard drive in this computer that was good except for the hard drive. So I negotiated the acquisition of the laptop with the faulty hard drive from my friend. (if the technical gobbledy-gook is confusing, just understand that it was by freak chance (so I thought) that I acquired this laptop). So, on Thursday, September the 2^nd, I put this new laptop into my backpack rapped in an extra set of clothes that I had in my desk and headed for home, knowing not what was about to happen. As I stood at the site of the accident recovering my body and my thoughts, I remembered the laptop. I wish I could say it faired as well as I did, but I can’t say that. What I can say with some certainty, is that the laptop, which was rapped in the extra clothes, “broke” my fall.

Now as I sit here typing this, I am left with some scrapes and bruises on my arm and leg, and a pretty decent bruise on my lower back. Aside from stiffness, I’m felling pretty normal right now. I did have to get a tetanus booster, but that was relatively painless. I’m still amazed, but ever thankful to God, who watches over me, even when I don’t know it, even when I’m not thinking of Him, even when I don’t deserve it: He IS watching over me.

Earlier this week I had given a verse to a troubled friend of mine:

Jerimiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I can’t think of a better verse right now.