“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.”
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.”