He is All Around Us

Posted by Molly

This morning started off great.  It was Charlie's last day of nursery school before his Christmas break and we packed up my car with the gifts for his teachers from the class and for lots of other school teachers and staff members from our family.  We chatted happily on the drive into school and then it happened....the driver in front of me turning on Falls Road from Wooten Parkway started to merge and then slammed on her breaks.....Crash!....I slammed on the breaks but there wasn't time and my car went sliding under hers. 


Miraculously, no one was hurt and her car wasn't damaged at all.   The way the accident happened, the front of my car slid under the back of hers so there was no body damage to her car.  My car was another story.  It's in the shop for at least a week which all things considered is really nothing to complain about.  My child and I are fine and that's what's important.

The accident scared me.  Getting into an accident is never fun especially when you have a child in the car.  I spent most of the day on edge but two really great things came out of it.

The first has to do with my St Raphael magnet sticker.  Two weeks ago, Mac realized it was missing and started freaking out.  He really loves having that magnet on our car.  So last week when the school store opened, I was there on opening day to buy a new magnet.  And because of that, while I sat in my car freaking out after the accident, four different friends from the St Raphael community saw the magnet and stopped their cars to help me.  One was actually the mother of Charlie's best friend who was able to drive him the rest of the way to school.  Who new that magnet would be my lighthouse during this storm?  It made me realize that in this big world our community is so small and so loving.  How lucky am I to be a part of it? 

The other thing was even more stunning.  Mac had already been in school for over an hour when the accident happened so when Charlie and I picked him up this afternoon we had to explain why I was driving a rental car.  As we were telling him about the accident, Charlie asked  "what was Jesus doing there when we had the accident?" This took me by surprise so I asked him what he meant and Charlie said "Jesus. He was there when we were crashing - why did He do that to our car?" and I had to explain that what happened to our car was a human accident - Jesus had nothing to do with it but if you saw Him there it was to protect us and that's why we're not hurt. It just rolled off Charlie and he was like "oh, that's nice - I'm not hurt" but I was floored. Jesus was there when I was having a minor traffic accident?

I asked Charlie about it again at bedtime tonight.  "Charlie, when you said Jesus was there when we were crashing did you mean you were thinking about Jesus or did you mean you actual saw Jesus?".  He replied very matter of factly "I saw Him.  Jesus was there". 

Again, I was floored, but I always believe it when little people see God or angels so I believe him. 

As my friend, Nina, said when I told her this story "Of course, He was there - it's Christmas and He is all around us".  

What a beautiful gift it is to know that. 
How lucky we are to be faithful at Christmas and all year long.
God bless you all and Merry Christmas!