Dot had a few parting words, “Be careful, it’s drizzling rain. Tennessee roads can be slick when they’re first wet,” she warned.
My husband was working in Chicago and I was at home with our three children. Lonely and uncertain about our pending move to the Windy City, I drove seven hours from Ohio to visit my sister in Tennessee. Dot, the children, and I tromped over a trail, stopping to enjoy a picnic at a fallen tree.
On Sunday, the children were sad to leave their Aunt Dot as we turned our car toward home. We had good traveling the first couple of hours, but as we rounded the curves through the mountains, it began to rain again. Instinctively, I touched the brakes to travel at a slower speed. As soon as I did, I knew I’d made a mistake.
My little green Chevy spun out of control. All I had time to say was, “Jesus.” We went into a hard spin. Kimberly, Kent, and Kyle all screamed as they braced themselves. We crossed into the other lane of the highway and back. Then we swirled onto a small stretch of gravel beside a closed café. The car stopped. When it did, I was praising God.
On another stretch of highway, we might have smashed into another vehicle or gone off the road into a ravine—since this was before I-75 was completed. But there was absolutely no traffic on this two-lane highway when we began to spin. Though I’d seen miles of roadsides which dropped off into the valley, this was one of the few places with a small stretch of land beside the highway.
I was unaware that our tires had poor tread and needed replacing, but God watched over us. He is constantly nearby and often keeps us when we aren’t wise enough to keep ourselves. How do I know? After returning to Cincinnati, I contacted my friend, Margie, to tell her about God’s protection. She asked what time we’d had the trouble and then told me she was washing dishes that morning when she felt impressed to pray for our safety at that exact time.
Even when we are unaware of danger, the Lord is alert to our needs.
(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)
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Phyllis Qualls Freeman is a freelance writer with twenty years’ experience and more than four hundred published devotions, magazine articles, and newspaper human-interest pieces. She lives near Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Answered Prayers, and several anthologies. She writes devotions on assignment and enjoys mentoring new writers.