Saved By The Grace of God

You know the old saying, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans..."

Well not that I was trying to make God laugh today, but he sure showed me who was boss. I woke up this morning in Nashville, got all of my things together, hugged Courtney and Lauren good bye and set off to come back to Arkansas.

I knew if I left by 10 a.m. then I could be back by 3 p.m. which would leave me plenty of time to shower, do laundry, go to the grocery store, run errands, blog about the last day of CMA fest, rest and watch the Bachelorette.

However, my plan just wasn't meant to happen today. As I was driving through Memphis the sky looked a little grey, but nothing to be concerned about. When I started driving through West Memphis the sky was brown...I'm not even kidding the sky was brown. I snapped a picture with my phone (safely) and prayed I wasn't about to be in the middle of a tornado.

The rain was so strong as I kept on going that I couldn't see the road. I decided to pull over on the side with my flashers on because it was just too dangerous to drive. I knew this was going to set my back on time but I figured safety first, right?

The rain started to let up so I decided to keep on driving. It was raining at a light, regular pace. Nothing strong. Nothing that I had never driven through before. I wasn't texting. I wasn't on the phone. The music wasn't up too loudly and I was just driving along.

This was the calm before the twirl.

All of a sudden I feel my car hydro-plane. I had felt this before so I thought I had just hit a wet stop and could keep driving straight but I couldn't. Before I knew what was going on my car was spinning around the interstate then spinning into the grass towards the other side of the Interstate. 

When someone says they saw their life flash before their eyes, they aren't kidding. It happens. During the spinning and movement I thought about things, I saw images, I prayed, I was ready to go if the Lord was about to take me. The first thing I thought about was my family. Then friends. I thought about people who aren't in my life anymore. I thought about the fact that my dad just got my car detailed. I prepared my body to get hit by another car. I prayed that if that happened the other person would be okay. I thought about what a great weekend I had in Nashville. I prayed that if it was my time to go that it would be quick and painless. I thought about how I wasn't going to be able to blog anymore. I wondered what people would say about me. I wished I had gotten extra tea at lunch. I prayed that it would all stop.

And then it stopped.

I was in my car. I was sitting right side up. I hadn't flipped. I hadn't hit anyone. No one had hit me. I was in the middle of the median. I was okay.

I was okay. I was okay. I was okay.

That's the first thing I thought about. My hands started to shake and I reached up to press the OnStar button...

"Hello, Miss Clark. Are you okay?"

The minute that someone asks, 'are you okay' is the moment your realize OH MY GOSH what just happened? My voice was shaking, I was shaking, I just wanted out of the middle of the Interstate. Don't get me wrong, I like to put on a fun show, but I didn't want to put on this kind of show.

I'm not sure if OnStar called the police, if someone saw me twirling around the Interstate and called or if I was just extra lucky and one happened to be traveling that way, but a trooper pulled up and asked if everything was okay.

I realized that I actually was alive. I wasn't on my way to meet my maker and decided to see if my legs would work. (I thought if I stood up out of the car, which was on an incline, that I would faint and just fall in the mud. Since I had decided to wear a white t-shirt I didn't want to put on that kind of show either with mud all over the place.

 

See the big white truck? That's where I started...

I got out of the car, saw that at least my side didn't have severe damage, went to the trunk which was in one piece, popped it up and switched from flip-flops to boots and found a jacket. Good. Now it looked like I was dressed for the farm with daisy dukes, now muddy boots and a white t-shirt. Perfect.

The trooper kind of laughed when he saw I had put boots on but if I had just survived I didn't want muddy toes. That's creepy to me. Ewwww

Trooper Awesome (his last name was too hard to say) tried to get my car out of the ditch but since I have this traction control thing it made it harder.

 

This isn't where it ended up...This is where the trooper tried to drive it to but it wasn't budging.

Want to hear some irony? My traction control was ON when I hydro-planed but turned OFF when he tried to get me out of the ditch. Get the irony? The traction control turned on made me twirl and turned off couldn't gain traction.

Nice, huh?

 Had to boost the car...

Notice how I am facing west while the Interstate is facing east...

After Trooper Awesome and Trooper Cutie helped and did what they could, OnStar finally got a wrecker to pull me out. The wonderful wrecker people who were so nice pulled me out and let me follow them (my car is drivable and fine) to their shop. They raised my car up to pull out all of the grass, mud and nasty junk that was stuck between the tires, by the exhaust and all up in the bottom side.

As I waited in the ditch, waited for the wrecker, waited at the wrecker, all I could think about was how lucky I was today. Actually, no, it wasn't luck. It was the Grace of God. I don't talk about religion a lot, I don't beat the Bible to others, I don't put my opinion out there, but I know what I believe and I believe in prayer.

Everyone keeps asking, did you have your hands on the wheel? Did you press on your breaks? All I can say is that I don't know because I'm pretty sure someone else was driving the car for me to protect me.

Maybe sometimes we need to be twirled to be set straight.

Something to think about.

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Labels: Arkansas , Life