What I Learned from My Car Accident: Gratitude and Choosing Positive Thoughts

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
 
 
About 6 weeks ago, I was in a car accident.  My very first one.  Thankfully no one was hurt.  Our van was originally going to get fixed, but after it had been sitting at the shop for a few weeks, it ended up being considered totaled.  So we had to buy a new (used) van.  Luckily insurance covered this and everything worked out.
 
Physically, no one was injured.  But emotionally, for me, there was some damage.  Part of me feels really silly, and almost unjustified, to even being shaken up by this whole thing.  If I compare my story to tons of other people’s car accident stories, mine is negligible and isn’t even worth getting upset over.  After all, no one was hurt.  And I am really grateful for that.  But I’m also the type of person that really likes to think about the things that happen in my life and try to learn from them.  Analyzing is my gift and my curse.  Haha.       
 
If you’re new here, you might not know that I used to have a big fear of driving.  It was pretty paralyzing.  You can read about my story here.  
 
Over the past 2 years, I have made huge strides with this fear and the progress has been so freeing and amazing.  But this car accident felt like I was sent back 10 (or more) steps and that was frustrating. 
 
I wanted to write about some thoughts that I’ve had over these past 6 weeks and how I have been able to “get back on the horse”. 
 
There were several nights after my accident that I would wake up in the middle of the night with flashbacks about the accident.  And when I finally started driving again a few days later (after we got our rental van) and I would drive the same location of the accident, I would analyze everything again and think “how did that even happen?  How did I not see that coming?” 
 
I would flinch every time I would be driving down the road and see a car coming down a side street and feel like they weren’t going to stop. 
 
I just wished that I didn’t have to drive anymore.  I kept thinking “man!  I have to do this for like 70 more years!” (give or take a few.)  I can’t just not drive anymore.  I guess I could, technically, but it wouldn’t be good for my family or my personal growth. 
 
 
Photo by Mick Tinbergen on Unsplash
 
 
I decided to not let this make me slip back into my old fears of driving.  I decided to not let this paralyze me again.  I kept pushing through (and continue to do so) and intentionally took on the motto “feel the fear and do it anyway.”
 
This is what I wrote in my journal on October 4, 2017..
 
“Thinking about the things that God is trying to teach me through this whole car accident thing. I feel like I take a couple steps forward with my driving confidence, and then I take one step back again. 

I have had a few kind of close accidents since my car accident. I am grateful to Heavenly Father for protecting me in those situations and helping me to avoid the accident. 

I feel more pressure and motivation to trust in God. I kind of feel out of control a bit. The natural man side of me just wants to quit. To just crawl in a hole and never drive anywhere. I don’t like being the driver. I also don’t love being the passenger anymore either. I think I have some PSTD from the accident. But the non natural man side of me knows that I need to keep pushing forward. I need to keep facing my fears and have faith. I need to trust that Heavenly Father is going to take care of me. And whatever happens, happens for a reason. 

If I want more blessings, I have to be willing to face more opposition. It comes in equal and opposite pairs. 

If I want more faith, I have to be willing to feel more fear – and then to choose faith over that fear. 

I don’t like feeling this anxiety. But Christ is the source of healing. He can heal my heart and mind. Healing takes time though.”

 

A couple weeks ago, I started to finally feel a shift in my mindset and I started to feel some emotional and mental healing.  I wouldn’t say that I no longer ever think about the accident, and that I don’t have fears with driving anymore, but I do know that I have felt great healing through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  And I know that that healing has happened a little at a time over the past 6 weeks, but also a lot during one particular time with one particular sincere prayer early in the morning a couple weeks ago.
 
After that prayer, I started to see things more clearly. 
 

On October 6, 2017, the day after I experienced that big amount of healing after that particular prayer, this is what I wrote…

“As I was driving P to school a few minutes ago, again, there was what could have been a close call with getting in an accident. A car was backing out as I was driving past the little parking lot in our neighborhood. The person in the car saw me, so they stopped pulling out, but because of my heightened anxiety since the accident, it still made my heart start racing for a few minutes.
 
And then for the rest of the drive to the school and back, I started thinking about how grateful I am for all of the times that Heavenly Father has protected me from getting into an accident. I have already experienced several of these moments (where me arriving at a specific location a couple seconds earlier or a couple seconds later could have resulted in an accident, or where I have been able to be extra cautious and avoid an accident because of my cautiousness) since my car accident a month ago. It’s hard for me to know if these somewhat “close calls” really are happening more than before, or if I am just more aware of them because of my heightened anxiety now. Anytime anyone gets into a vehicle and drives somewhere (as the driver or the passenger,) it is a risk.
 
In any case, it’s pretty amazing that I have been driving for 13 years now, and I’ve been a passenger for 29 years, and as far as I know, I’ve never really been in an accident before this one that I had last month. That’s pretty amazing. It makes me realize that I have probably been protected thousands of times (from close calls, and also from things happening for a reason that delayed me (making me later) or sped me up (making me get somewhere earlier than I would have) that then resulted in me avoiding an accident that would have happened. When I think of it that way, I am in awe and feel immense gratitude for God’s hand in my life.
 
I was also thinking about how potentially this accident that I got in was a blessing in disguise. Perhaps God let me experience this minor accident (minor… actually negligible as far as physical injuries go, not so minor as far as our van is concerned) because He was protecting me from something else. Maybe our van would have malfunctioned or something (or I would have been a more distracted driver because my confidence had increased) in the future, causing a bigger and more serious accident? Maybe this is a blessing in disguise because I am now trying to be more cautious and less distracted when I am driving. There could be a ton of reasons why this accident was actually a blessing. And when I look at it that way, I am grateful. I am grateful for God’s hand in my life.”
 
 
Photo by Simon Maage on Unsplash
 
And then a few days ago, I was thinking about how 2 opposing thoughts about a circumstance can both be speculative, or delusions, things that they can’t be proven.  They can both be just figments of your imagination. But we have a choice of which thought to believe, or at least which one to practice believing.  And I think that it is best to pick the one that fuels the best feelings and actions and gives you the best results.
 
Here are a couple examples…
 
 
Optional Thought #1: “Things didn’t turn out how they were supposed to. We should have filed through our insurance instead of the lady’s. Then our van would have been taken to a different shop and maybe they wouldn’t have been shady and taken our van apart and said extra, (possibly) unnecessary things needed to be replaced and fixed, and we would have gotten our van back and not had to buy a new one.”
 
Or
 
Optional Thought #2: “Things happened just how they were supposed to. Gods hand is in my life. Maybe something worse would have happened with that particular van in the future and God was protecting us from that.” 
 
Another example…
 
Optional Thought #1: “Getting into a car accident shows me how easy it is for me to get in an accident. I have to be paranoid because it could happen again at any moment.”
 
Or
 
Optional Thought #2: “Getting in a car accident shows me how easy it is for me to get in an accident. I feel gratitude to Heavenly Father for all of the thousands of times that He has protected me from getting into an accident. And I know that if/when I get in an accident, it is for a reason.  God’s hand is in my life and He has a divine design.”
 
Sure, none of these thoughts can be 100% proven.  They are all delusions.  They are all made up in my mind.  But which option is going to give me a better result?  For sure, option #2, in both examples.  So that is what I am choosing to believe.  Those are the thoughts I am choosing to practice.
 
I am choosing gratitude.  I am choosing faith.  I am choosing to trust God’s plan for me.
 
 
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash 
 

Leave a Reply