As 2020 begins I have thought this week about a lot of things. It feels like as the new year starts each year we kind of have a clean slate and a new start. To me each new year feels like a fresh start in a lot of ways. Some things remain the same, but with some things I feel like I get a chance to start new and fresh. I talked last week about being better. One thing I want to be better at this year is being appreciative of how fortunate I am to not only have the life I have, but the God I have as well. I just want to remember to take the time to tell Him “Thank You”. Something happened this week that reinforced that idea more than I could have imagined.
Thursday evening my wife and I were by ourselves coming back from Weatherford. We had been to some friends’ house at Hydro and then went through Weatherford to run an errand. We were on I40 about 10:30 PM on the way home when something happened that opened my eyes to this very idea of being appreciative and thankful. As we approached our exit there was a semi parked on the shoulder on the right side of our lanes. To the right of the semi was a vehicle parked in the ditch. Both of them had their lights on and were just sitting there. We didn’t think much about it. Normally I would, like everyone else, pull into the left lane to avoid coming too close to the semi. But we were literally right at our exit. So I decided to stay in the right lane so I didn’t have to change lanes twice that quick with other people behind us. As we got close to the semi we started running over glass, part of a tire, a fender, and several other things that I couldn’t identify. It startled me that we were running over things but not near as much as what I saw next. As we got to the semi, I looked to the left and I saw a car that had been demolished in a wreck. It honestly made me sick to my stomach when I saw that car. We could still smell the burning rubber from the tires. The scary thing about the car was there was no lights on it. They had been knocked out and the car was sideways in the left lane. I immediately thought about how if we had switched lanes we would have hit the car and the cars behind us would have hit us and then several other cars would have been effected. It could have been an even worse deal for so many people. As we got off the interstate at our exit I thought that I needed to go back and help, even though I was not sure what I could do to help the situation. Since it had just happened there was no way to stop traffic and could be a really dangerous situation to anyone in that area. About the time I slowed down and was deciding what to do about it I looked up and saw emergency vehicles coming and realized at that point I would just be in the way. I did the best thing I could do at that time which was pray. I prayed to God that no one would lose their life in that wreck. I wasn’t sure that was going to be the case based on the condition of the car, but I prayed that God would take care of those involved. I also thanked him that we had made the decision to not change lanes and that we had not been there just probably mere seconds before this because that could have been us. But at that point I just prayed to God to place his hands on that situation and protect those people.
On the way home Kristin and I talked about what happened after it all processed. We talked about the fact that we weren’t sure what all we ran over. We didn’t see any people anywhere at the scene so we didn’t know if they were in the vehicles or ejected. We had no idea as to the extent of what happened but we just prayed. Once we got home we parked my truck and got out. To tell you how fresh the wreck was when we came up on it, when we got out of the truck we realized that my truck was covered in oil that was spraying from the car in the road. So at 11:00 at night while it was 40 degrees we were at the car wash, washing the oil off of my truck. We did have the whole place to ourselves though. We later found out that the car got on I40 going the wrong way and hit the semi head on. But luckily, by the grace of God, there were no fatalities in accident. All the people involved survived. We all know of situations where this is not the case. It is so heart breaking when things like that happen. Fortunately in this case all lives were spared.
That is what made me think about how fortunate we are. This whole situation made me think a lot. It’s been on my mind for 3 days now. We started this holiday season back in November talking about being thankful and I want to finish the holiday season with the same idea in mind. I take for granted all the time how fortunate I am for so many reasons. We all have stories like the one I just told that hit home for us and moments that happen to us that make us think about these things in a more serious light. We can choose to focus on the negative in those instances or we can focus on how we can use those things to be better at whatever aspect of life that situation deals with and find the positive in those situations. This incident made made me think about how thankful I am for the things in my life that bless me daily. I have a wonderful family and a wonderful set of friends that I can’t imagine doing this life without. As I talked about a little bit last week, we spent a few days in Grapevine, TX with our kids for Christmas. We were just miles away from the church shooting in Dallas last week as well. That made me do a lot of thinking too, which is a story for another day. But as I worked on my patience all week while we were down there, there was really only one time that I got upset, which is remarkable for me if you know my patience from the past. That one time I got upset was with Kristin when she started messing with the GPS on my phone while we were less than a mile from an exit. Somehow through all those shenanigans the app I was using for directions got closed and I missed my exit. In the midst of all of that and me trying to quickly find out how to get back to where I needed to go in heavy Dallas traffic, she drops my phone and delays the process even longer while she looks for it in the floorboard. Although she found the situation comical and ludicrous that I was getting a little testy with her in that traffic, this spat lasted only a short time and minimal sarcastic or rude comments were said by either party and we went on about our day. I even stayed calm when she tried to take advantage of my new viewpoint of when I feel she is in a store too long. There was a time or two the last week or so that she really stretched that out and tested me. Kristin even had a friend, a pretty ornery friend at that, ask her while she was talking to her in the store if I was in the car. I know she was wanting to test me out and talk to Kristin for awhile. But I was in the store, just in a different location. So that ornery little friend didn’t get to test me that time. But the beauty of this blog is that it holds me accountable. I don’t want her pointing out my flaws or that I didn’t follow what I had been writing about. So I was able to keep my mouth shut during those times she tested me.
It kind of stinks that my kids are getting older. They are growing up way too fast. But, there are some perks to it too. They are much better travelers now. They don’t fight quite as much. They aren’t quite as loud, most of the time. Also, their bladders have obviously grown because we don’t have to stop every 30 minutes now. They probably like that too because I no longer dehydrate them when we travel. We used to start that process the night before. If we were headed on a long road trip, the night before we started scaling back on our liquid intake so that we could make it to our destination in record time due to the few number of stops that we made. It’s a guy thing. We like to brag about the awesome time we make when we travel. But that can only be achieved by being as efficient as the children allow. But now, we can be a little more relaxed on that practice. All these little silly things I am thankful for though. I am so appreciative that God has blessed me with these people and these memories. I’m even thankful for those ornery little friends that just want to bring out the best in me.
As the holiday season comes to a close and it is back to the grind, take time to think about what you are thankful for. I discussed this a few weeks ago. Since then I have taken the time to think about this more. I have evaluated what I feel is important. I have looked at my life and realized that God has blessed me abundantly. Sure, there are always things that are going to happen that challenge us. There will always be things that don’t go our way. But, in those times, I challenge all of us to find a way to be thankful for those things as well. We can be thankful, not for the problems, but for the strength that is built in us through those problems. When we face tough times, if we continue to trust God and lean on him, we will gain strength. We can be sure that God’s love will see us through. That is something to be thankful for. I Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Our prayers and thankfulness should not change with our circumstances. By staying diligent in doing God’s will in these situations, we will be happier and more thankful. I challenge everyone to think outside the box a little bit. The obvious things to be thankful for come to our mind every day. Think about what we have to be thankful for that isn’t right there in front of us. Maybe it is just things that happen with our family like I discussed above. Maybe it is something as simple as your kids getting older and traveling better. That may sound like a little thing, but when you like to travel that is a huge thing. We all have different things to be thankful for. We all have different things in our life that we can appreciate. But we all have one thing in common that we should be thankful for on a daily basis, and that is our mighty and gracious God. Other things will come and go. But not Him. Not our God. He is always there. He will never leave us. One of these days Jesus is coming back. I have thought about that the last week or so as well with everything that has gone on. He is coming back at some point. We have all made excuses for why we have done things that go against God’s will. We have all made excuses for why we couldn’t be at church or why we couldn’t do that Bible study. But I heard a quote one time that said, “Excuses will always be there for you, but opportunities won’t.” We have an opportunity to have a relationship with God. God has given us such a great opportunity and I sure don’t want to waste it. So many times I have a wish list that I pray to God for, but I need to really remember to work hard at just taking the time to say, “Thank You God”!!!