Well, this blog post is doubly true to the name; accident. I'll explain as I go along, so just hang with me for the next couple of minutes I have you.
As all (or at least most) of you know, I've been having a lot of GI issues over the last year or so. It's been a real up-hill battle even to get as far as I am now. Just a few weeks ago I got the news that my liver enzyme count was back to normal which was a huge blessing, but it turns out that it will take longer to heal my GI than we thought. I probably have another 6 months left before I can be fully healed, but that all depends on how it goes. Well anyway, my stomach has been hurting me more consistently these past few weeks than it has to any point thus far, so it can be really discouraging at times. But this afternoon at the law office (for my internship) was one of the worst times my stomach has been. I was almost at the point of going in my car and just laying down in the backseat, but it wasn't quite that bad. Needless to say I felt under a lot of attack today, and I think a big part of that is the new song that we wrote and played at open mic night at BG last night (watch here). I know that satan is trying to get me down, but somehow God always turns it around, or is in the process of doing so that I can't see and might never see. I feel that is especially true of what happened tonight.
For some reason I felt that something would happen on my was home from work tonight, so I asked God to get me home. Then I realized that I was turning into the wrong road from the parking lot. So what do I do? I back up. But as I am backing up, I feel a thud and realize that I'm up on the curb and, thinking 'it's just a little curb', continue to back up. Suddenly, there is an even bigger thud, but instead of the car going back down, it goes up. I try to pull forward, but realize that my wheels are just spinning in the air. "What the..(well, you figure it out)" I yelled to myself. I got out of my car and slammed the door shut, only to come around the back and see to my utter horror that I am on top of a two-foot-tall rock. Then, that one rock turns out to be two two-foot-tall rocks. I ran around and jumped back into the car and tried to give it some more gas to get me off, but as I found out later, one of the rocks was locked onto the gas tank (which now has a huge dent in it). I was furious and (being a guy) began to ram into the car, trying to push it off. I somehow managed to get the first rock off, but the other one was underneath the transmission. I sat there and prayed that God would provide for me and surely enough about a minute later two men in business suits came up and started helping me figure out how to get the car loose.
"Do you have a tire jack?" one of the men asked.
"I don't think I do actually" I replied, but went to look and make sure. I didn't. The only way we would be able to do anything was to get a jack. So what do you think happens next. You guessed it, the repair man from the Noteboom office just happened to see us as he was leaving and also just happened to have a jack in his car. We started jacking it up and were making good progress when the jack broke. Joy.
By this time I should have mentioned that my mom was driving to 'pick me up' (no way I told here what happened over the phone) and arrived just as the jack broke. So we got the jack out of the mini-van and continued to jack up the car. Several minutes later (and skipping much of the story) we ended up getting the rock out from under the car. The two business men has left a few minutes before and the repair man was just leaving. We tried to give him money for his help, but he wouldn't take any. I drove home no problem and we're still waiting to take the car into the shop so we can see the extent of the damage.
So that was the first accident, the second one is much less thought of when we say accident, but it happens to us everyday, or so we say. This 'accident' is when you forget to take your little brother with you to your school and have to turn around and get him. Or when you burn your lunch and have to make it again and end up being late to the movie. We call them accidents, but could they really be God's provision? Maybe your being late to class saved you from an accident you would've had. Maybe you would have been mugged in the parking lot if you arrived at the movie early (just go with me on this one). Maybe, after all is said and done, it was God's provision for you. Maybe he needed you to see something. Maybe he was saving your life.
As I drove home this evening, I felt a huge relief on my heart, like God saved me from some major accident the I would have been in; and I truly believe he did. So what most people would call an 'accident', I know was God's provision for my life.