I was on my way to pick up Kyra from school today, with Elijah and Owen, and it was raining. It had been raining all day long. I had just slowed down to take a huge curve at the top of a very big, steep hill. I had gained a bit of speed as soon as I started down the hill. Suddenly, a purple car pulls out right in front of me. I had about two seconds to hit my brakes, and…they didn’t work. The hill was so slick with rain that I was just sliding. In the split second before I t-boned the purple car, I jerked the wheel to the right, and into the ditch. My heart was beating out of my chest as I slid about a hundred feet down the hill. My brakes were useless on the wet grass and pavement. I was bumping violently over rocks, and Elijah was in the back saying, “Whoa, Mama. Whoa! Whoa, Mama! Whoa!”. I finally skidded to a stop. I put the car in park, and sat there trying to catch my breath.

Did that just happen?

It did, and I couldn’t believe it. I had went years without any automobile incidents, and I had just gotten into the second one in only about a month’s time. As I sat there, the purple car pulled down beside me. I looked over to see three teengagers with three very worried looks on their faces.
“Are you okay?” the boy in the passenger seat asked.
I nodded. “Did I hit you?”. It had all happened so fast that I didn’t even know if I had hit them at all.
“No.” the boy said. “We’re so sorry. She didn’t see you.”
How could you? I thought. You didn’t even slow down before you pulled out.
I was standing in the rain, with my hand over my heart. I couldn’t quite catch my breath.
“Are you okay, Ma’am?” the boy in the backseat asked me.
“Yeah. I’m just nervous. My heart is pounding.” Inside, I was thinking, I can’t believe that I am the adult in the situation. I don’t know what to do.
So, I did what any good woman would do. I called my husband.
Long story short, I called Chris, got the kids’ phone number just in case, sat on the side of the road crying a bit and telling concerned motorists that I was okay and my husband was on the way, and then got out and stood in the rain while Chris drove the van out of the ditch. I couldn’t believe that the van was not hurt at all.
Chris drove his truck to a parking lot, and then drove us to pick up Kyra, making sure the van was driving right. I kept replaying the whole scene in my mind. I am so glad that I had those two seconds to decide to jerk the wheel towards the ditch. If I had of hit those kids, I probably would have hurt them really bad, or even killed them. They were in a little car, and I was in my big van. The two boys were on the side that I would have hit. Without those two seconds to make a decision to do something other than hit my brakes, things would have been a lot different. God was definitely watching out for us.
Now, the thing that keeps running through my head is, “Whoa, Mama! Whoa!”.