It was a lovely sunny morning after a few showers during the night. I was heading off to a ladies’ meeting at our church that weekday morning and set off gaily down the hill in our faithful little red Toyota. I enjoyed driving and the feeling of having everything under control.
I had been in the habit of taking the hill fairly fast, and this time was no exception. At the bottom corner, I noticed a vehicle coming towards me and realised I was cutting the corner more than I should have been. I swerved back onto my side of the road properly and as I did, the car got out of control. It swung violently this way and that before doing a complete turn around and shot across a wide ditch coming to rest against two large trees. All I was conscious of was a gentle thud as the car landed.
I was a bit dazed for a moment, trying to take in what had happened. The car was facing the wrong way! I didn’t feel hurt anywhere, and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the part of the car that I could see. There were no broken windows and the air bags hadn’t gone off. I gingerly tried the door which opened normally and I got out. I looked around at the car and there were no marks on it anywhere until I looked at the wheels. Then I could see that two tyres had been torn off by the impact. It was incredible!
As I looked around, and saw the deep ditch I had gone over, I could only be convinced that the angels must have picked the car up and set it down carefully for there to have been so little damage done! The vehicle that had passed me, backed up to see the result. I asked him if he could take me back up the road to our house where I had to confess my sins to my husband.. He took it very well (after all what else was there to do?) and I phoned one of the ladies to tell her that there would be no meeting for me that day!
We got into our other vehicle and went down the road where hubby surveyed the position. His idea was that he could drive it out, but I was afraid the car would slide into the ditch (which was quite deep) and do far more damage. He tried, but the front wheel had completely lost its tyre and had no traction. So he went back home and phoned a friend to see if he was around and able to come with his 4WD to help.
After trying to tow it out, they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to work without some real damage being done to the car. So they went back to the house and got the endless chain (what a wonderful bit of gear that is!). They fastened one end to the fence post and the other to the car. Now they were slowly able to pull the car out by hand.
Once it was safely out, hubby took the two stripped wheels to the nearest tyre place where they refitted new tyres on them. Our friend stayed with the car on the side of the road until it was mobile again.
About ninety minutes after me leaving home the first time, the small red car came back into the garage little the worse for its adventures! There was just a tiny dent on the front mudguard to show it had had a hard time!
But later when I thought about what could have happened, I had cold shivers up my back. I realised how fortunate we all were! And how gracious the Lord was to me in circumstances that were caused by my own fault! One thing I learned though, was to take that corner much more slowly after that!