Have you ever experienced one of those situations where a bunch of moments lead up to something and at the time that those moments are happening you don't think anything of them until hours later when they finally become significant?
Let me explain.
December 2, 2019.
I drove a friend's car. Talked with another friend about which of us would drive this friend's car back home. We talked about who was a better driver, how many car accidents we'd gotten into as the driver. I said none, my friend said one.
How did the night end?
Car accident. We were rear-ended at a red light by someone.
I will always remember standing on the curb in the snow, staring at my friend's car in the middle of the road. My friend who had been driving walks over to me, staring at me as he approaches and says, "...Two."
My point? Our prior conversations about car accidents and driving had been completely random and seemingly meaningless at the time, until we actually got into a car accident an hour later.
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| A view while stuck on the i95 in NC; March 6, 2020. |
Flash forward from December 2019 to two nights ago - February 4th.
I had to go to the church office in the evening for a recording of the worship set we're using for Sunday morning.
Now the context here is that, with traffic, it takes me roughly an hour to get from my house to the office.
I remember my mom telling me before I left mid-afternoon that we were supposed to get a pretty intense snowfall.
"That won't start until about midnight though," she told me.
"Yeah... I won't be out that late. Why would I have any reason to be at the office that long?" Was my response to her.
Remember my original point here. Moments that lead up to something and seem insignificant until they finally become significant.
After the recording - which was so fun and went really well by the way, thank you for asking - I was chatting with a friend briefly and he asked me,
"Do you work tomorrow?"
"Yeah, in the morning. So I need to get home so I can go to sleep."
Yeahhhh. Just keep reading.
I left the office just before 10:00, at the same time as two of my friends. The last "insignificant moment" I can recall is one of them saying,
"Make sure you text someone when you make it home."
It caught me off guard and seemed kind of random, because while it's true that I live the furthest away from the office than any of the others who were there that evening - only 10 people, don't worry; we follow those pandemic guidelines around here, it's all good - it still seemed random to me because my friend never tells me to text someone once I'm home. But y'know, it's nice that people care about me so of course I agreed and said I'd let someone know.
I get in the car, I get on the highway. I realize after two minutes 'Oh shoot, I was going to get gas!' I get off the highway. I get gas. It's about 10:20pm now, and I'm ready to be home asap.
Little did I know I had a big storm coming. Figuratively, but also quite literally... Remember the impending snowfall.
I get back on the highway, driving for about 14kms before the pickup truck in front of me puts on his break lights, eventually coming to a dead stop. This is at 10:28pm.
Side note, I know I drove 14kms because I paid attention to the mileage before leaving the gas station, wondering how many it'd take to get from there to my house, just fyi.
I stop behind said pickup, suddenly realizing that all the vehicles in all three lanes are dead stopped too. I had experienced something similar to this back in the fall when there had been some road paving happening on the highway. For some reason I thought maybe that's what was going on here.
I didn't think about the fact that that's ridiculous right now because it's the middle of winter.
At 10:50pm when we were still stopped, I started thinking. 'Okay, time to put the car in park. It looks like we might be here for a time.'
I tried to stay calm and be patient, because at that point I realized that an accident had likely occurred and considering all three lanes are completely stopped, maybe the accident had been fatal, and obviously that person's family has it a lot worse than I did, sitting there in my warm car. I know now however that the accident wasn't fatal for anybody which is nice!
I'll spare you my inner monologue for the rest of the time that I sat there on the 401 in the middle of the night, but let me just tell you... I could have read my car manual all the way through and perhaps started to even memorize some of the information if I'd wanted to.
What I really did was listen to a whole album that someone at the office had recommended to me that evening, fiddle with the child locks on the windows of the car, watch the snow that had begun to fall intensely - as previously noted, and then start to listen to old One Direction tracks to pump me up when I started to feel tired.
At 1:00am, we started moving again. At that point, I was about 30 minutes away from home but because of the aforementioned intensely falling snow, it took me still another hour to get home.
I left the office at 10:00pm. I made it home at 2:06am.
So what did I do when my hour commute turned into four?
'You already told me what you did', you're thinking.
I told you what I physically did to pass the time, considering I couldn't leave the car and all my friends were asleep.
But I haven't told you yet what happened in my heart during those four hours.
You know how people always wonder and ask the questions, "How do you know God is real?" "What has He ever done for you?"
During those four hours, He kept me safe. He kept me calm. I knew I wasn't alone.
I was texting my best friend about the situation, and when she decided to go to bed she told me that she was sorry to be leaving me alone in this scary situation, but "I'll be praying for you though. So, you're not alone!"
And the thing is, it was kind of a scary situation. But when I think back to it, I wasn't actually scared. All I wanted was to get home safely. I believed and trusted that if God wanted to get me home safely, then He would. And He did. That is how I know He is real. That is what He did for me. And He continues to do that each day.
And even though the whole drive took four hours, it didn't feel that long. I sat in the same spot on the 401 for two and a half hours, but thinking back on it, I can hardly believe I remained occupied and calm that whole time. I even remember noting that the time seemed to be passing surprisingly quickly.
I'm still kind of rattled about the whole thing, to be honest.
I wasn't really scared, even during that last hour when I couldn't see where I was going or what lane I was in because the plows hadn't been through yet.
I was physically alone the whole time in the car for four hours. But I didn't feel alone or scared in the middle of the night, as the snowstorm began around me.
It was such a strange situation that I'd never experienced before and honestly, hope to not experience again.
But I will say, I decided to get coffee on my way to work yesterday and all I could think was,
'I waited on the 401 for two and a half hours, I can wait in the Tim Hortons drive-thru for five minutes.'
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