Grateful beyong measure

Psalm 33:8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. 9 For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.
10 The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. 11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart to all generations. 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.

As if just waking up with another breath was not enough to be thankful for, God has once again moved mountains to show Himself faithful in a most recent occurrence....... Long story short, John has yet to outlive his usefulness here on earth.

Now for the details. Last Friday John was in an accident. While I HATE accidents, it seems like the only ones John has been in are too close for comfort. While I have been the one to get in ALL the accidents here in FL so far (none of which were my fault, thank God) so I suppose it was John's turn to meet a few crazy Florida drivers. His car is a total loss, but these are replaceable. Here is the skinny on what happened.

He was coming home at around 4:45 in rush hour traffic. The road he was traveling on was I-82, which is a 2 lane road that is a main artery between our home and civilization. The speed limit is 60 MPH and while many other left hand turns on this road have a turn lane, where we turn there is NO turn lane.

John was at a complete stop waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so he could make a left hand turn. There was no one behind him at first when all of a sudden a white truck & trailer made a daring move. Not sure if he just wasn't paying attention of just did not want to stop. Instead of rear-ending John he just kept on going driving to the right on the shoulder of the highway which is a grassy area. He did not hit John but it was very startling. About 8 months ago, DOT put some nice barricades in that grassy area to discourage people from doing this. Due to the size of the truck and the rate of speed he was driving, he didn't mind taking out 5 of these barricades. He never did stop.

Since the truck did not slow down, the person behind him did not see John until it was too late. He did not have much time to react to the trucks maneuver, so rather than rear ending John, his 4 door compact car swerved to nick John's left bumper and went into ONCOMING TRAFFIC. Poor John was at a dead stop in between these 2 crazy drivers. Once the guy in the compact car realized that was a VERY POOR DECISION, he immediately turned back into John's car pushing them both off the road. Although the damage on both vehicles was extensive it appears that everyone walked away without extreme injury. The man who hit John had his wife and 2 kids in the car so this could have been a very traumatic event if there had been injuries.

Here is the cool God-stuff behind HIS total protection:

• Praise God he was not rear ended by that huge truck and trailer. That could have been a big blow. Could have possibly forced his car into on-coming traffic!



• John does not have AC in his little car so he drives with the windows down. Most days home from work he hangs his arm out the window to catch the breeze. If he had been doing this on that day he would have lost his arm.



• If John had not been at a complete stop during the accident, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass...... if instead he had begun his left hand turn, when the man behind him decided to turn into on-coming traffic he would have been T-boned by the compact car and possible another moving in the opposite direction. Most certainly a fatality or other life altering injuries could have changed his life in drastic ways.



• Although John has some whiplash and muscle soreness, it appears that his injuries may not be all that bad!



• This just so happened during the time my parents were here for a visit so while we went to the ER to get John checked out the kids were safe and sound with grandma & grandpa!



• John and I both got to witness to the other driver and plant some seeds.

So, while this means we are inconvenienced to purchase another car, God has a plan in everything. We are just grateful that his timing is perfect and his provision is unsurpassed so that we have the ability to continue doing what He has called us to out here!

This is a scripture that pretty much sums up our thankfulness!

Philipians 1:3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; 7 just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. 8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. 9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, 11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

It is amazing to see the Lord's hand in a circumstance that could have been so tragic but yet due to his plans, we get to hang out here a while longer. He is so good to us!

Pictures/story of the accident

For all of you's who wanted to know about the

accident, it was pretty amazing just how much the Lord protected us! I was driving the kids home Thursday from Ben's Karate lesson at about 5:20pm. It was raining really hard so this makes the streets really slick. Hydroplaning on streets are a reality to be aware of during the rainy season. I was stopped at a red light with about 15 cars in front of me when I heard/felt a big thud from behind. I didn't see it comeing, which is a small blessing since there would have been nothing I could have done to stop the impact and if I would have inched any closer to the car in fron this would have been bad too! The impact was very sudden as the lady in a small Ford focus hydro-planed into my back end. When I realized what happened I realized my foot wasn't pressed hard on the brake as it was when I had first stopped and I was slowly moving forward toward the car in front of me. THANKS TO MY DADDY, who taught me to never get so close to the car in front of you that you CAN'T see their back tires (gotta love those things that actually stick!)....... anyway, by the grace of God and maybe an invisable angel that worked as a sponge between the car in front and me, I stayed far enough away from the next car up to prevent a huge bumper to bumper mess on one of the busyest streets in town! The lady who hit me, her car was very damaged and didn't appear to be repairable while ours is still drivable. The back bumper will need replaced and the back door, while it still opens and closes just fine, will need to be popped back into the right shape. OTHERWISE, there is no other damage! No broken glass from the back OR side windows that could have shattered on top of the kids and there doesn't seem to be alignment damage! The girls parents walked in the pouring rain to the scene where they profusely apologized. I felt such sympathy for this poor 18 year old girl & her family. Probably because at the age of 18 I had 2 accidents that were my fault and where I totalled vehicles all because I was being too reckless...... Her family had to walk to the accident scene as it seemed that she was driving the only car. Can you please be praying for this girl as she recovers and heals from this traumatic experience. Being 18 and knowing that she put the family in a pretty hard predicament must be a lot of pressure so please pray that their insurance company would speed up its usual red tape battle for them to recieve compensation soon!The kids pretty much escaped without any harm done except for the trauma of being in an accident. Abby's first response as I dialed 911 was to ask "Mommy, can we pray". She is always my tender-hearted one! As I talked with the 911 officer her big sister prayed with her, however, shortly after this and after assessing the damage to the car behind us, Abby broke down. She started sobbing "I WANT MY DADDY" over and over, so I cut my 911 operator short to comfort Abby and let her know everything will be OK. Shortly after that the kids were on to a much happier subject..... "Mommy does this mean we will get to buy a new car?" Yeah, from that statement I KNEW they were fine as they shared their extravagant wishlist of what a new car will have (A TV for every passenger in the back). They were a tad bummed when their bubble was burst and they found out the car was fixable! :o) The fire, police and ambulance showed up which also provided the kids with the needed distraction and people asking if they were OK or felt any pain. Here is another so cool God~thing...... John gets off everyday at 5, but on Thursdays he usually goes straight to the church for Men's prayer to wait for others to arrive at 6. On this day in particular he took an alternate route to kill time and not get there early. It would just so happen that his alternate route was right beside the accident scene. Once he saw our van he was able to stop and come see if everyone was OK. This was so cool that God heard Abby's prayer for her daddy. It was also very neat that he got to witness the scene so that he knew about it before returning home at 7:30 & extremely exhausted from his full day. After finding that we were all OK and Abby was calm he was able to get to the church in time!Last night & today I was feeling the results of whiplash & the light-headedness never left so I went in to the ER to make sure everything was Ok. Somehow during the chaos of the accident I lost my liscense. I remember the police officer handing it back to me but after that where I put it I am not sure. After looking for a while with limited range of motion, I had to take a detour to the DMV before being scene...... Hospitals are kinda funny about not wanting to see people without ID? Anywho, I got in to the room......... after my spine was X-rayed & head CT, the Dr said that I had no new injuries that she could see! With the fact that I have osteoporosis in my spine this was a huge relief to know that there was no further injury! My CT was OK as well, which is another big praise for someone who needs to keep what I have left on my brain!! I am still pretty sore and probably will be for another couple weeks as my muscles heal. Thank you for all your concerns and prayers!I just ask if you would please pray for a couple other things besides the girl and her family..... Could you please pray that the insurance would be expediant at doing their jobs on our side as well and that we find a good shop that will charge within reason of what the insurance estimated it will pay for repairs. Florida has some weird insurance laws so this will be a learning experience but I am sure God has a reason for everything and that maybe we will have opportunities through this to be a witness of Him. I am going to go to bed now but tomorrow I will post this on my blog along with pictures of the damage! I have my blog set up with a widget on the side that allows you to sign up to recieve any new entries, via e-mail. That way you can keep up without having to constantly check. If you already get them sent to your e-mail address you don't need to sign up again! Thank you for all your prayers! Here was the song that was playing in my head soon after the accident was over, and the realization of how much God protected us was understood:

The Lord is gracious and Compassionate, slow to anger and rich in Love (2X)

And the Lord is good to all, He has compassion In all that He has made;

As far as the East is from the West,

Thats how far He has removed our transgressions from us (2X)

Praise the Lord, Oh my Soul, Praise the Lord (2X)

HUGS all!

Here is the lovely rainbow that appeared after the rainstorm!

Some funny T~shirts

Just thought I would share some funny shirts that John's work likes to print out! They are rather funny to police officers but not all could appreciate this demented sort of humor as we do! BTW on each of these shirts it says pretty clearly LEE COUNTY GUN RANGE which is why most of them have targets on them.

Once John gets his own gun, not department issue, I can practice at the range and wear one of these shirts! He He!

John has one shirt from Benton county that is now mine because he ordered it too small. Last time I wore it to church one of the older gentleman there told me "I have never seen a family so bold to ADVERTISE the establishment of a jail". Of course I have never really thought twice about it...... I am glad John's other shirts from the other facilities he has worked are either too small or too worn out to wear.

Anywho, if there is anyone who wants one of these John gets a discount so let me know if you want us to send you one. These ones are being sent home to my father, brother and Sharon (John's former boss). Anyone else? HUGS!

Praise!

Just wanted to update you all on the car business! We ended up having ALL the tires replaced on the little car since Costco has a rebate special..... When one blow you have to buy 2 anyway so why not just get all 4.
The van...... it is so odd how that all worked out. We figured it would be a huge expensive thing because we thought something in the van was draining the battery. Come to find out that the 2 things that wear out more frequently here than anywhere else in the country are tires and batteries. HUH, and for our family both like to go around the same time! :o) Since we changed climates, eventhough we replaced the battery in the van, just over a year ago it was so badly drained it needed a new one! I guess it was even bulging on one side too which I suppose would be a bad thing. Our pastors wife told us to keep our receipt from the battery replacement since most warrenties are still in effect by the time it is needing to be replaced again! Crazy weird but kind of a blessing I guess? I made sure they checked it several times to see if anything was drawing from the battery when the car was off but their little computer machine thing-a-majiggers found NOTHING! Anytime we had the van in before this for repair it always topped over $1000 so when we heard it was only going to be $170, this was quite a nice change! Hope you all have a wonderful Turkey day with your friends and family! HUGS!

Funny how things work out....

Yes, I know...... Two posts in one day? It has been an eventful day and unfortunately this is not a funny haha but funny in an ODD way! We have been having trouble with our van for about a month now. I will spare you the details but we were asking around to find a good mechanic and made an appointment to drop it off tonight so they could look at it tomorrow. So, when John got home from his long day at work, we jumped the battery in the van and caravaned off to drop it off at the repair shop. On the way there, we were not further than a mile away from home and all of the sudden I can't see John in the review mirror anymore. Odd I thought, but since traffic was pretty heavy due to the time of day and the increase in population, I figured he just got behind so I kept going and stopped on the side of the road till he caught up. Well, he never came, so I back-tracked trying to figure out what had happened. The 'good car' that was going to keep us moving while the van was in the shop, blew a tire. By the time I found John he had already changed the tire and had the spare on. After dropping off the van, we tried to get to somewhere in time to buy a new tire but because of all the delays everything was closed! As soon as it happened, John immediately knew it was just an attack, but knowing this still doesn't make things any better..... Please pray for John as he uses this car to get to work tomorrow that he makes it there and back safely........ the county owes him some hours so he is going to try to get some time off to get his tires fixed and pick up the van after they fix it! I guess the praise in all this is at least it wasn't 2 tires or 2 cars in the shop due to mechanical issues!