Friday, October 4, 2013

Traveling Mercies

The phone in my purse rang and I saw it was my granddaughter, Bethany. We had left our daughter's home in Tennessee a few hours earlier and were on our way home. "Mimi, I just wanted to check on you guys," Bethany said. Then she told me of a horrific accident that had happened on I-40 at the very spot we had crossed that morning. A bus had crossed over the median and struck a semi-truck and an SUV with many fatalities and injuries. We were very familiar with the location and knew exactly where it was.

We sent grateful prayers toward heaven that we were not involved in that! One never knows what can happen in travel. We told her that our trip had been going fine and we had just entered Arkansas. Just a few minutes later we were in a traffic clog with trucks lined up as far as we could see. A steady line of them was pulling off after we noticed a sign advising an alternate route. Frustrating stop and go traffic finally gave way to slow progress as we merged into a single lane for miles.

The dark clouds overhead grew heavier and it began to rain. The windshield wipers were only smearing the bugs and blurring our vision. Howard stated regretfully that he should have replaced the blades. The sun was dropping through the clouds just in time to reflect on the wet highway in a blinding glare. We had hoped to make it to Little Rock, but after many tense miles of this, we decided to stop for the night.

The little motel wasn't great, but it was a welcome shelter in the time of storm. After checking in, Howard came back to the car and said, "The manager said he had just gotten in from Little Rock and told me there was a 3-truck pile-up there causing a horrible traffic mess!" Thank God we had stopped!

As we neared home the next afternoon, our daughter we had visited in Georgia called. When I told her of our experiences, she said, "Mama, God protected you on both ends of your trip!" Our daughter, Julie, said the same thing when she called. I couldn't have agreed more!

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