Miracles Still Happen

I should be dead.

Thursday night I was cruising down an unlighted expressway at the 70-mile-an-hour speed limit. Suddenly a dark car loomed in front of me, parked sideways across my lane of traffic. In the split second before the impact, I thought I was going to die. As our cars collided, mine continued moving forward through an inky blue mist, which must have been pieces of the other car flying into the air. Then my air bag deployed and my Honda Accord coasted to a stop on the right shoulder, safely out of the way of oncoming vehicles.

And I realized that I was not only alive but virtually unhurt.

Not something I can say about my car.

This picture shows the front right of the car while it was sitting on the bed of the truck that came to haul it away. Unfortunately, it was dark and the only camera I had with me was the one on my cell phone. But maybe you can see a little of the damage from this photo.

The seat belt (which I always wear), the air bag, and the safety engineering of the car had a lot to do with saving my life. Although the front end was almost unrecognizable, the damage stopped far short of the passenger compartment. Thank you, Honda engineers and U.S. safety standards.

But the fact that I was able to walk away? That was a miracle that can only be attributed to God. He obviously has something left for me to do before I die.

The other miracle is that no one was in the other vehicle at the time. Just minutes before, the driver hit a deer and his car spun sideways across the freeway. It isn't a heavily traveled road, and the light traffic gave him time to flee from his automobile before another car (mine) collided with it.

So even though his car ended up looking like a skeleton with shattered bones, my sprained wrist was the worst of the injuries, and that came from the air bag rather than the actual collision. Not that I'm complaining. A sprained wrist is nothing compared to what could have happened without the air bag.

At the time of this post, I'm still waiting for my insurance company to tell me whether it considers the car totaled or just in really bad shape. However, it was bad enough in my eyes that I went out and replaced it with another Honda Accord. And what they had in stock was the same color, so no one can tell I bought a new car. Oh well.

For those of you who may ask, no, my life did not flash before my eyes. I didn't have time to hit the brakes, and I didn't even have time to feel afraid. But I don't fear death, anyway, so I am more likely to have worried about how it would affect my family. And although I am prepared for death, I'd rather it didn't happen yet. So I praise God that I'm still here.

Some people would call it luck, but I call it a miracle.