Something very scary happened on the way to drop off the boys at Kidzone (kids’ church) this evening. It was a classic Defensive Driving scenario: We were turning left and had been stopped for several seconds with my left turn signal on, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass by at 60mph. A car was exiting the cross-street, waiting to turn onto the road that we were turning off of. Suddenly, a car came barreling up behind us going easily 70mph (in a 60mph zone, mind you), and it obviously wasn’t planning to stop for the Chevy Traverse with its brake lights clearly on and its left turn signal clearly blinking.

It scared the crap out of me.

There was nothing I could do in the instant that I realized it was about to slam into me from behind, throwing the five boys and me into oncoming traffic. My reflex was to tap the brake; I didn’t even have time to honk the horn (as if they would hear it from behind me??). At the last moment, they swerved onto the shoulder and avoided slamming into us. I was shaken. Literally, shaking, as I drove the last mile or so to church. All I could think of was “what if” …

I declared aloud, “Thank you, Jesus.” I’d like to say that that was the first thing that came to mind, but honestly, the first thing that came to mind was to shout, “Idiot!!” at the swerving car.

I’ve had too much grief to deal with in the past 2-1/2 years. Yet, I kept thinking about the side-curtain airbags and wondered if they’d be enough to protect the two boys who were seated on the passenger side in the 2nd & 3rd rows. In a split second — longer than I would have liked to imagine it — I pictured them unconscious … even dead. I didn’t want to believe it, but my imagination went there. I imagined waking up in the hospital and not knowing which boys were alive and which ones were dead.

I prayed and asked God to clear my mind, and I thanked him again for intervening and letting us avoid what surely would have been a terrible wreck. Even after praying, even after driving back to the church and picking them up and arriving back safely at home, I’m still leery to go to sleep. I don’t want those nightmares. Perhaps I will read for a while and try to distract my imagination.