Long time no inspiration, seriously though, having a 21 year old in college without a driver's license has been a challenge. The fact is that said 21 year old still does not get up easily and battling his sleep predilections drains me. Truly. Physically and mentally it just wears me out but only one more week and he can get the license back. I am hoping for complete sanity restoration.
So.... onto the near death experience that inspired me to share again.
We traveled from Georgia to Alabama for the Thanksgiving holiday on a very cold wet day, The six of us went in two vehicles because I had to return home earlier than everyone else. Sparta
was in the lead with our two youngest and I followed with the older two. We were in the home stretch, at about the fourth hour of a five hour trip when I lost control of the car. I was on an off ramp and picking up speed in the curve of a pretty steep hill, so I braked not realizing how very wet the roads were. At this point it all became quite surreal, it felt like we were no longer touching pavement. I could hear Ben and Allison yelling as we spun completely around, I could see the four cars that had been directly behind us, now in front of us for a split second and we continued to spin. I was trying to recall my driver's ed from thirty years back and remembered "don't press the brake while hydroplaning" but could not recall whether to turn into or out of the spin.......that is when I had a Carrie Underwood moment. No I didn't sing but I did lift my feet from the pedals and my hands from the steering wheel, it was a "Jesus Take the Wheel" kind of reaction and it worked. We stopped in the mud, on the shoulder, facing oncoming traffic about ten feet from a pretty steep drop off (from 9th grade Alabama history I recall the northwest area of the state being called the foothills of the Smokies although at that point in time it looked more like a full fledged mountain).
Allison and Ben had life flash experiences, Allison told me she thought about jumping out of the car because she KNEW we were going to die if we went over the edge. Ben was pretty much speechless and I was laughing hysterically. For me it's either laugh or fall apart and I choose to laugh, no doubt if I should run across a dead body someday I'll be suspect for my inappropriate response.
Do I really believe Jesus took control of my car? Well, prior to road trips we typically have a prayer in the car, for this particular trip I prayed specifically for a double hedge of protection as we traveled since there were going to be two automobiles on the road and I have to tell you I don't think one hedge could have kept us from continuing to slide right through that red mud and rolling right on down to the bottom of the hill. I am pretty sure taking one's hands off the steering wheel is not the recommended way to respond either. So, yes, yes I do believe that a higher power was in control.
Where was the second car in all this you might be asking? I did too. They didn't have a clue what had happened, About five miles down the road, my hubby called to say he'd lost us. He had no idea how very close to actually being lost we were.
