Every year on March 14 I have this overwhelming sense of the fragility of life, and I marvel with gratitude that I am still here. As my daughters were getting ready for school this morning, I showed them old videos of themselves from twelve years ago. “This is how tiny you were when the car crash happened.” What if I had left them then? It’s hard to imagine.
I filmed the girls the morning after the car accident, Lillie playing with Sabrina through the slats of her crib. She was singing classical music to her and thumping on her diapered bottom as a drum, my little five-year-old who is now looking at colleges that offer a major in violin performance. I remember all that was filling my heart that morning, secretly watching those little girls, listening to the warm house noise they created. I know I hadn’t slept a wink. That was a night of reckoning as I marveled at God’s protective hand over my life.
I recently had a new chiropractor tell me that there is no way I didn’t experience whiplash with a car crash of that magnitude. Then moments later, he looked at my x-rays and couldn’t believe how healthy they appeared. “I wouldn’t have known you were in that kind of crash,” he remarked. Perhaps there has been healing in these last twelve years, or perhaps there was no whiplash.
I remember feeling like I was in a protective bubble as that semi tore off the front end of my Jeep. Everything was flying around me. Metal was violently twisting, and the vehicle was spinning, but I was fine. I wasn’t even panicked. When the Lord intervenes in ways that we actually witness, we cannot deny His presence and protection. There are thousands of ways He is present and protective every day that we are unaware of, but sometimes He gives us a peek.
We are getting ready to launch Gratefulness Matters next month. This is Matters Ministry’s second women’s Bible study, following Truth Matters. On this day, March 14, I am extremely grateful that I can look back and reflect on twelve years of life. “Grateful” doesn’t begin to describe it. It’s been twelve full and exciting years as we have raised our girls, transitioned elderly parents, developed ministries, added to our musical careers, and fallen more in love with each other and with our Jesus.
Gratefulness matters in the life of a believer because the Lord calls us to gratitude. It’s not a suggestion, it’s His command for our lives. He knows that what is best for us is glorifying Him through trust and gratitude. We are to be a grateful people! And some days, that just feels easy.
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