A split second can change every thing. . .

Eddie, my young nephew, a 17 year old high school senior, was injured in a terrible automobile accident two days ago in Lafayette, Indiana.  He was driving to school in the early AM, fell asleep at the wheel of his white Ford pick up, and hit a dump trunk head on.  Were it not for seat belts and air bags, he’d not have survived. Fortunately the man in the dump trunk was wearing a seat belt too and he walked away unharmed.  Eddie wasn’t so lucky.  He will be recovering for some time.  But he’s alive.  He’s still alive.

Perhaps he needs to get to bed earlier.  Or start drinking coffee in the morning. Or any number of other ways to stay awake may need to be tried.  But the important thing, after an accident like this, is to begin counting your blessings and make a plan for changing whatever you did “wrong” into some thing better for the future.

Does his survival mean he has some important work to do before his days are done?  That’s how I choose to see it.  I’m not sure what he is thinking. Seventeen year olds don’t always contemplate the presence of God in the many “near miss” experiences, the way I have chosen to do while aging.  But it certainly makes the confusing more acceptable when I decide that God can offer a good use for every one of my experiences even if I can’t.

As I look over my past and the many times I could have died, I know that the hand of God was present.  That statement would have sounded so hokey to me a few years ago.  And now I love it.  It guides me daily.  It answers the questions that still come on occasion when what is happening takes me by surprise.  Now I know that God simply has not gotten around to explaining to me what the experience is for.  I haven’t “been in it” long enough to learn what it is trying to teach me.  Patience will provide the clues, however.  This I know for sure.

Eddie’s accident has certainly taught me a couple of things.  Being hyper vigilant when I’m driving is crucial.  I also need to let the cell phone ring.  I seldom talk on it while driving but I have.  And even though that’s not what caused Eddie’s accident, it certainly has caused many deaths on the highway.  The purpose that is ours to fulfill in this life will go wanting unless we show up to do our part.  There’s only one way to do that.  Live carefully.

Are you grateful and expectant every day?  God is offering you, and me too, whatever is needed to fulfill the purpose that’s perfect for us.  Aren’t we lucky?