Question #157
I spent an afternoon at Barnes and Noble a few months ago – this is a place where I could spend hours upon
hours. As a reading specialist by trade – and a reader by nature – it makes sense. On this particular trip, I
found a book, tucked away with the journals in their display, called 3,000 Questions About Me. I opened it
and started thumbing through – and I have to admit, I was quite intrigued. I started looking through the
questions, thinking about what my responses would be. I knew I just had to get it – the book sat at my house
for a month, collecting dust. I finally pulled it out and decided to answer one page of questions a day. 3,000
questions can be overwhelming – but how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! As I answer my page
of questions each day, I read the question – and I put what immediately comes to mind. I do not overthink
them – I answer them honestly and openly. My series of blog posts will focus on certain questions that I
believe get to the core of who I am – as a wife, mother, and a child of God.
157. Have you ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Where?
Unfortunately, this has happened recently – on two separate occasions. One Saturday this past May, I took
Connor out with me to run some errands in our Ford Explorer. The road we traveled had no center turning
lane – if a car needed to turn left, they stopped in the middle of the lane with their blinkers on. This means
other drivers must pay attention – either slow down behind them or move to the right lane to get past them.
The car in front of me stopped abruptly, then turned his left turn signal on – I saw this within enough time to
stop behind the car and wait for him to turn. I talked to Bob on the phone, going over our plans for the day –
and not thirty seconds after I stopped, I felt the impact. A small SUV ran into me, going 40 miles per hour,
with me at a dead stop. I had a case of whiplash as I hit my head on the headrest – and poor Connor did not
know what to do. He screamed out of fear – luckily, I was still on the phone with Bob. He immediately came
to the scene to check on us and make sure we were OK. Bob checked on the other drivers to ensure their
safety as well – and in the car behind me, he found a scared teenage driver with her phone in her lap. This
reeked of distracted driving – the front end of her SUV was completely smashed in, and her airbag had
deployed upon impact. We had the police come out to collect information for a report – and we went our
separate ways. At the time, it truly felt like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time!
The second instance happened a few weeks later – we were in the process of traveling to Tennessee to visit
my family. We stopped in Illinois to get some dinner, then we proceeded on toward Nashville. All of a sudden,
we came to a dead stop, six miles outside of Paducah, KY. We were at this dead stop for at least an hour and a
half – Bob asked a few people parked around us about the situation. We found out that crews were working
on a local bridge, and they were rerouting traffic to the opposite side of the highway. Once we got through
this part, we were smooth sailing – until we got to the bridge. We, once again, came to a dead stop. This
time, an hour passed – a second hour passed – and we had not made any progress. Bob, once again, got out
and talked to other drivers – this time, the situation proved more serious. We heard that a tractor trailer had
completely blown over, from the right lane to the left lane, on the main bridge. The culprit of this fell upon
the terrible weather that had come through earlier in the day. It took crews three hours to clear the tractor
trailer out of the highway – so there we sat, in our car, for three hours! Once again, it felt like we were in the
wrong place at the wrong time.
I now know that this assertion is not true – we were right where we needed to be in each of these situations.
The Lord knows our beginning – He knows our end – and He knows everything in between. He foresaw both
of these events before they actually came – so why did He allow them to happen? Could He have prevented
them from occurring? I fully believe He could have – but He chose not to do so. James tells us to “Count it all
joy when we face trials of many kinds – because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance”
(1:2-3). These two experiences have truly taught me this principle – working through the logistics of my
accident have taken quite a bit of my time and energy. The same can be said for waiting in the car for almost
five hours – we had nowhere to go, so all we could do was wait. God intended for me to be in both of these
places – He had lessons that He needed me to learn.
God bless,I spent an afternoon at Barnes and Noble a few months ago – this is a place where I could spend hours upon
hours. As a reading specialist by trade – and a reader by nature – it makes sense. On this particular trip, I
found a book, tucked away with the journals in their display, called 3,000 Questions About Me. I opened it
and started thumbing through – and I have to admit, I was quite intrigued. I started looking through the
questions, thinking about what my responses would be. I knew I just had to get it – the book sat at my house
for a month, collecting dust. I finally pulled it out and decided to answer one page of questions a day. 3,000
questions can be overwhelming – but how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! As I answer my page
of questions each day, I read the question – and I put what immediately comes to mind. I do not overthink
them – I answer them honestly and openly. My series of blog posts will focus on certain questions that I
believe get to the core of who I am – as a wife, mother, and a child of God.
157. Have you ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Where?
Unfortunately, this has happened recently – on two separate occasions. One Saturday this past May, I took
Connor out with me to run some errands in our Ford Explorer. The road we traveled had no center turning
lane – if a car needed to turn left, they stopped in the middle of the lane with their blinkers on. This means
other drivers must pay attention – either slow down behind them or move to the right lane to get past them.
The car in front of me stopped abruptly, then turned his left turn signal on – I saw this within enough time to
stop behind the car and wait for him to turn. I talked to Bob on the phone, going over our plans for the day –
and not thirty seconds after I stopped, I felt the impact. A small SUV ran into me, going 40 miles per hour,
with me at a dead stop. I had a case of whiplash as I hit my head on the headrest – and poor Connor did not
know what to do. He screamed out of fear – luckily, I was still on the phone with Bob. He immediately came
to the scene to check on us and make sure we were OK. Bob checked on the other drivers to ensure their
safety as well – and in the car behind me, he found a scared teenage driver with her phone in her lap. This
reeked of distracted driving – the front end of her SUV was completely smashed in, and her airbag had
deployed upon impact. We had the police come out to collect information for a report – and we went our
separate ways. At the time, it truly felt like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time!
The second instance happened a few weeks later – we were in the process of traveling to Tennessee to visit
my family. We stopped in Illinois to get some dinner, then we proceeded on toward Nashville. All of a sudden,
we came to a dead stop, six miles outside of Paducah, KY. We were at this dead stop for at least an hour and a
half – Bob asked a few people parked around us about the situation. We found out that crews were working
on a local bridge, and they were rerouting traffic to the opposite side of the highway. Once we got through
this part, we were smooth sailing – until we got to the bridge. We, once again, came to a dead stop. This
time, an hour passed – a second hour passed – and we had not made any progress. Bob, once again, got out
and talked to other drivers – this time, the situation proved more serious. We heard that a tractor trailer had
completely blown over, from the right lane to the left lane, on the main bridge. The culprit of this fell upon
the terrible weather that had come through earlier in the day. It took crews three hours to clear the tractor
trailer out of the highway – so there we sat, in our car, for three hours! Once again, it felt like we were in the
wrong place at the wrong time.
I now know that this assertion is not true – we were right where we needed to be in each of these situations.
The Lord knows our beginning – He knows our end – and He knows everything in between. He foresaw both
of these events before they actually came – so why did He allow them to happen? Could He have prevented
them from occurring? I fully believe He could have – but He chose not to do so. James tells us to “Count it all
joy when we face trials of many kinds – because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance”
(1:2-3). These two experiences have truly taught me this principle – working through the logistics of my
accident have taken quite a bit of my time and energy. The same can be said for waiting in the car for almost
five hours – we had nowhere to go, so all we could do was wait. God intended for me to be in both of these
places – He had lessons that He needed me to learn.
Steve
Luke 18:1
E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org
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