Surprises

Life does take some interesting turns at times!

Saturday the 17th, was my older brothers 40th birthday. His wife, (my dear sister in-law, who is like a sister to me) invited us to a surprise birthday party she was planning for him on the 18th. They live in Indiana, a nine hour drive away. I did not see how we could go, in fact I was making plans for something else and told Michael that "it would just have to be God saying go" if we were to go.

God said go.

So, we packed up and headed out on Saturday morning very happy in the knowledge that this was definitely God's will for us to go.

An hour into our trip we were on a state highway headed South, my Mom was driving and was in the process of passing some slower moving vehicles when to our horror we saw headlights coming towards us in our lane. There was a semi on our right, so my Mom put on the brakes hard, planning to move into the right lane. Instead, our van began to slip on the snowy road and we spun across the right lane into the south bound ditch where we plowed backwards deep into the snow. Everything seemed to go in slow motion for me and I remember turning to see what we would hit and watching as we just missed a post on the side of the road.

My Mom called 911 and they dispatched a wrecker to get us out. Meanwhile the lady who had been driving the wrong way turned onto a road where she could turn into the North bound traffic.

A Sate Police officer stopped to see if we were OK and my Mom told him what had happened. He told us that just down the road on the North bound side, a lady had just rolled over her car and that it happened to be the same lady who three months earlier he had given a ticket to for driving the wrong way in the very same spot where we were. He showed us a picture of her car and it looked like the same one!

A wrecker came and pulled us out and soon we were on our way. Then the van began to jiggle hard and we stopped to knock out some snow around the tires. Back on the road it continued to jiggle so we stopped at a nearby town to look for a mechanic. All we found was an auto parts store where my Mom told them our story and asked for a mechanic, they called a guy who was willing to take down from his lift the car he was working on and put our van up to have a look. One of the auto parts people led us the several miles to this mechanics shop. It turned out that our left rear tire was shot, the tread was all twisted with wires hanging out of it. We had a spare tire with us which actually was a full sized tire and he put that on for us. Then we found out that he is a newly saved Christian!

God's was with us all the way. There are so many things that could have happened that didn't and we know that God was protecting us. We are so thankful to even be alive and unhurt, Praise the Lord!

The party went very well on Sunday, my brother had no idea that we would be there and was totally surprised! Shocked, is a better word. He had never even guessed it! We all had a fun time and we thank the Lord again for tightening family ties.

My brother Dan

My Mom and Kristofer (my nephew)

Dan and his son Kristofer

Myself and Noah (my nephew)


Michael and Noah

My brother and "sister"

Praise God for a safe trip home and for all that He has done!