Intersections

The title of this blog, Intersections, signifies the many ways in which our faith intersects the normal events of our life.  In this article, the term “intersections” takes on a whole new meaning for me.

It was Tuesday morning, November 21, 2006.  We received one of those calls parents dread – the one after a car accident.  I could only hear Kristal’s side of the conversation as she talked to Lyndon.  Are you OK?  Is Matthew OK?  Is that an ambulance I hear in the background?  We’ll be right there!

Lyndon was driving his Mustang to school with Matthew in the passenger seat around 7:45 in the morning.  A long stretch of this drive is along US 380 through McKinney and Prosper and the speed limit is 65 miles per hour.  As Lyndon was traveling west-bound with the sun rising to his back, a gentleman in a small pickup truck pulled out from a side street directly into oncoming traffic and at the last minute he seemed to become aware of the red Mustang flying toward him and he swerved slightly into the traffic as Lyndon also tried to swerve.  Because of these two instinctive responses, the Mustang struck the pickup a glancing blow rather than a head-on crash making contact on Lyndon’s passenger front bumper and fender.  Both airbags deployed in the Mustang and the car somehow stayed in the west-bound lane and skidded to a rest on the shoulder without involving any of the cars around him and without swinging into oncoming traffic on the busy highway.  The Mustang was totaled in the 65mph collision but both of my boys walked away without a scratch.  We even dropped them both off at school after finishing up at the scene of the accident.  And then we cried.  The recollection of the accident makes me cry today.  Circumstances could have been so different.

It was Thursday afternoon, March 18, 2010.  We received that call again.  Kristal came out of the house saying Lyndon had been in an accident and he needed me.  She told me he was OK.  Lyndon was home from ACU for the weekend and was headed to school around 3:30 to pick Jackson up from chorus practice.  Lyndon entered the intersection at FM1461 and Preston Rd. in Prosper when another car headed north-bound on Preston ran the red light and struck Lyndon’s blue Mustang on the driver’s side front fender.  The north-bound car left over 100 feet of skid marks behind as it struck Lyndon’s car still going over 20mph according the police officer’s estimate.  After I arrived at the scene and while waiting for a tow truck, we watched as the police officer arrested the other driver for driving under the influence of a controlled substance after they searched his car.  The Mustang has significant damage (at least $3000 is the current estimate) but once again my boy walked away from this accident without a scratch.  Kristal arrived as the tow truck was pulling the blue Mustang onto the flatbed and she took Lyndon home while I went on to the school to pick Jackson up.  There was more crying.  Circumstances could have been so different.

So to my God and Father: For all you have done, I will thank you.  I know your hand was in these events and I thank you for saving my children.  If you had taken either of them or both, I would be at peace knowing where they are both going and knowing we will all be together with you soon.  However, I thank you for leaving them safe and healthy with us and sparing us the pain of separation.  Thank you, Lord!

Why write this article today?  Partly because I wanted to finish the How are you? series last Tuesday without interruption.  Partly because I wasn’t in shape to write about this only a few days after this last accident.  However, I’m now happy that I waited a week to write.  As part of dealing with the emotions of these accidents, I can’t help but think about “what if.”  What if I had lost a son in one of these accidents?  The thought is almost too painful to ponder.  And yet I have a Father who not only pondered the loss of a son, he willingly embraced that loss and chose to sacrifice his son for me.  Would I sacrifice my son for any of you?  Not a chance!  However, having been given a chance to face the reality of possibly losing a son to an accident, I can at least in some very small way begin to comprehend the grief and pain my heavenly father must have suffered when he chose to let his son die for my sins.  For that small comprehension and small sharing in your suffering, I thank you Father.

Most importantly, on this week when the world stops to remember the sacrifice of the cross and the victory of the open tomb, I pause to thank God and his son, my savior Jesus Christ for saving me from myself.

For all you have done, I will thank you.  For all you are going to do.  For all you have promised and all that you are is all that has carried me through.  Jesus I thank you!

Thank you, Lord!

Until next week,

Meet me at the intersection!