The road was dimly lit. The combined efforts of my fogged over
headlights and sporadic street lights were doing the job to guide me home. As I traveled further down Aurora, I noticed
what appeared to be two lights on the side of the road. These lights were oddly
placed on the horizon, giving me the illusion that a person was walking with two
flashlights.
As I got closer, the outline of a car began to
emerge. The two lights were headlights,
and they were oddly placed because the car had flipped upside down and was in a
ditch.
But something wasn’t right. No one was around. No fire trucks, no police, no bystanders,
just a car with headlights on and the radio playing upside down in a ditch.
I immediately dialed 911 and gave them the needed
information. I then began searching the
car and the area for a body but couldn’t find one. I called Mark, one of the pastor’s of Midtown
to come out (who beat the emergency vehicles to the scene) to help aid the
search, and still, no body, just an upside down car.
The fire department and EMTs eventually showed up
and also began to search for the driver of the car, using hi-tech devices such
as sonar as they searched the water for any signs of life, still no body; just
a car in a ditch on the side of the road sitting on its roof.
Before long, theories started to emerge from those
searching for the driver. Was the car
stolen and the driver darted out of fear?
Did the driver get ejected and was submerged in the water
somewhere? Did he panic and frantically
leave the scene of the accident? It
didn’t make sense. But soon the pieces
of the puzzle would begin to fall into place.
At 1:15 am, I was leaning against my truck, watching
the first responders do their work (a fine job, I may add!). They were waiting for the Florida Highway
Patrol to pull up on scene, as they continued to search for the driver. By this time though, they had concluded that
the driver was not around and was probably ok. As I was leaning against my truck, I saw a
middle aged woman walk up to the scene.
She was clearly upset at something, as she walked in protest straight to
the Fire Marshall on duty. “There is
nothing wrong here! You all shouldn’t be
here! My son is fine, he just flipped
his car and is now home in bed! I called
the tow company about an hour ago and the Highway Patrol. The Highway Patrol was not interested in
coming out because no one was hurt.” She continued in her remonstration as she
felt the compulsion to defend her son’s actions, “He was simply driving down
the street and lost control. A tow
company will be here soon.” “Ma’am, you
do realize this car is upside down and partially submerged? This is the scene of a terrible accident in
which we are doing our duty to ensure no one is hurt.” The Fire Marshall went
on to gather information for his report, and the emergency crews left leaving
me standing there with the frustrated woman.
“I’ll wait here until the tow truck gets here, it’s spooky out here this
late at night.” I said to her, in hopes
to satisfy my curiosity of what unfolded in those moments her son sent his car
rolling into the ditch. As we conversed,
she settled down, and her motherly compassionate side began to emerge as she
was able to explain to me that her son just bought this car and had a lot of
pride in it. As she talked, the joy of
her son’s safety bubbled to the surface as did the concern of what really
transpired between her son and the road that night.
We can only speculate at the details of how that
Subaru ended up on its roof. But I do
know this, from my own 16 year old encounter with a ditch and my car, that her
boy was pretty shaken when that car flipped upside down. I bet you he panicked and didn’t know what to
do except run home and ask his mom for help.
Sometimes life leaves us in that state of
panic. We find ourselves at one moment
enjoying a peaceful drive down some road; with the windows down and our hand banging
to the beat of the melody rolling through the stereo, and then suddenly, to our
surprise, the next moment we are frantically trying to escape out of a flipped
car in a ditch on the side of the road.
Being human, you know that life has it’s ways of
taking us by surprise. Perhaps you are
suddenly served with divorce papers, or a child revealed to you some dark area
of their life they had been hiding for all these years, or maybe an adulterous
affair is revealed between your spouse and best friend.
How do you react in those moments when life flips
you upside down? Do you retreat into the
solitude of your home? Do you practice
breathing in order to control your temper?
Maybe you recite a Bible verse that reminds you of God’s
faithfulness.
There is one thing we all need in those moments, and
that is a friend, the type of friend that Proverbs 18:24 speaks about, “but
there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Finding that type of friend can be difficult
to do sometimes, but they are out there.
A true friend knows how to weep when you weep and rejoice when you
rejoice. A true friend can forgive reckless
hurtful words from a person who has lost control of life and is striving to get
it back. A true friend is what we all
need in those moments.
I can’t point you to your next door neighbor, or the
mom you meet at M.O.P.S. But I can point
you to a classical hymn named, What a
Friend we have in Jesus.
“What
a Friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to
carry Ev'rything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what
needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry Ev'rything to God in
prayer.”
Sometimes all we can do when life takes us by
surprise is turn to our friend named Jesus and carry everything to Him in
prayer.
If you are experiencing one of those surprises in
life, I am sorry. I know how tragic they
can be. But can I tell you person to
person, friend to friend, that Jesus does care.
He has been by my side in all my twists and turns in life and he wants
to walk with you in yours.
