The Presence Of God

While eating dinner last night, Abby was listening to Nick and I share stories of how tired we were. To top my story of exhaustion of a typical day with the kids plus planting some flowers and laying down mulch, he started to explain he was so tired he practically fell asleep at the wheel driving home from work.

Abby was shocked by this. She told him that he cannot fall asleep while driving! When he said that God must have been driving for him, she started laughing and said, "Oh Daddy! God can't drive your car!"

That's when Nick brought up my story from years ago...

I had just left Camp Lambec at 10 pm to start driving south to meet Nick and his family to head on to Myrtle Beach. Two things are important to know here-1) After an exhausting week of camp, leaving at 10 pm on a Friday night is not the smartest thing to do and 2) Interstate 79 South is completely straight and boring, especially in the dark.

I did everything possible to stay awake. I stopped at every rest stop and kept buying Mountain Dew. I drove with the windows open and the air blasting. I listened to music that I could sing to, music that was loud and blasting, and the new CD of one of my campers. I tried calling some of my co-counselors just to chat, but of course no one has cell phone reception next to Lake Erie.

Of course this was the age where Nick and I shared one cell phone and of course I had it with me "to be safe." I tried calling his mom's cell phone to say I was going to stop earlier than our original meeting place, but no one answered. I just kept plugging away and attempting to stay awake.

This is where it gets strange and I still cannot explain what happened. I know I fell asleep for awhile. At first I would just drift off for a few seconds and jerk awake, swerving to get back into my lane. But, eventually, I believe I gave in. I remember waking up at one point and seeing a huge, dark arm holding the side of my car, guiding it along the road. I said, "Thank you" and went back to sleep.

I am always skeptical of stories like this, but I swear it is true. There is no other explanation for what happened except for the hand of God keeping me safe.

So, while Nick was having me relive this experience, Abby just kept laughing at the idea of God driving our cars. She said, "Jesus wasn't in your car, Daddy! He was at school because He's a teacher!"

Well, I suppose that makes sense. We might want to work on explaining the omnipresent characteristic of God-I'm sure that will be easy.