I stood in front of the congregation and told the story below, which Hubs thought my blog readers may appreciate as well. Enjoy :)
Hi! I’m Jess. Many of you know me as wife to Bill and Mom to Billy, and of course, soon I’ll also be Mom to Simon. However, many of you may not know that I am actually accident prone.
I’m not sure when it began, but I feel like it happened around the time I started regularly coming back to church. Wait, what? Yes, you heard me. My firm belief and love of Jesus came with consequences. Yet still, I keep coming back. Let me explain.
In the summer of 2011, months before Bill and I got married, I was in a serious horse back riding accident. One evening, my horse broke loose and began heading for Crystal Lake Avenue - where traffic was moving at a brisk 55mph. Grabbing the closest horse to me, I hopped on and started galloping off to catch the runaway.
Horses sometimes don’t get the memo, unfortunately…that it’s time to work and be serious. The horse I grabbed wanted to have fun instead, and it sent me over her ears, yet trapped with my feet in the stirrups. Dangling and being kicked back and forth as she continued to gallop through the field, eventually, I was drug and broke myself free. I landed face first in the turf and the mare trampled me as she ran away.
Against all odds, not a single bone in my body was broken.
Fast forward nearly four years to February 2015. After a wonderful weekend away, I was on my way home when I lost control of my car in the snow. My car hit the snow like a ping pong ball – it bounced and rolled all the way down a highway median - probably 30 feet or so. And, after a weekend-long blizzard, no one was on the roads to witness what had happened to me that Monday morning.
As my car tumbled and rolled down into the median, I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t nervous or afraid or worried about what would happen. It was such a “Jesus Take The Wheel” moment…I just remember thinking, “Oh. Here we go.”
It was as though someone held me through the whole accident. I wasn’t jarred or bumped or bounced around. I just felt suspended, mid-air as my car tumbled, I sat still.
Yet, this time I didn’t only have myself to worry about. I had sweet, precious, unborn Simon in my womb to stress over.
I remember gasping in the emergency room. The moment I finally heard his heartbeat and knew he was healthy and safe inside of me, I gasped. I gasped and cried and I thanked God.
The greatest things in my life have happened since I have been a member of this church. Before then, I didn’t have faith. I didn’t believe in grace or the journey or the light. While nothing *that* terrifying may have happened to me before, nothing this wonderful happened either. I believe I was saved by Jesus. Emotionally to start, and physically since then. If that isn’t resurrection, I don’t know what is.
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