The Little Red Car - and God's Grace


I used to have a car - one of those cute little compact SUVs that you see all over the place. My car was different though - it had Army and Veteran and Navy stickers on the back of it and a yellow ribbon magnet. It had a two star banner decal in the back window. This is the car that I came to love as it plowed through the harsh winter weather that is Western NY from November until March or April. It took countless road trips to see the kids, last summer taking all of my china and silver to Laurie.
Yesterday, on the way to work, this all changed. We were rear ended by someone who had no clue how to drive in rush hour traffic - and within the period of 5 or 10 seconds, this little car was totaled. But that's where God's grace comes in - Ron and I walked away. We were shaken and sore and took a trip to the hospital, but we are not injured any more than a good case of whiplash.
There are blessings in everything. While minding our own business, stopping when we needed to stop, paying attention to the traffic, etc., etc., someone else was not ~ yet we were blessed - because GOD was watching and protecting. In the aftermath, I can remember sitting there and being so incredibly thankful. Nevermind that this was our only vehicle, that we could not drive it, and that there was metal and glass all over the place. We were alive. The car is sitting in the lot at the collision shop. It's not a pretty sight, and the insurance adjuster found over $11,000 damage in the front end of the car - didn't even get to the back of it with it's rear wheels totally bowed in and bent.
But Kasey and I had our night time ritual without missing a beat last night - bath, ice cream, book, and bedtime. And grandma was in bed within a half hour of Kasey's bedtime.
Back to work tomorrow. God is good.
And His grace - it's an amazing thing, isn't it?
God bless our troops and those of us who wait.