Black Ice

From the archives, a Thanksgiving story. Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends!

As newlyweds, the beloved Swede and I faithfully made the eight-hour drive home to celebrate Christmas with our extended family.  When our children came along we wanted to create traditions in our own home, giving them memories of waking up in their own bedrooms on Christmas mornings.  For years, after Christmas I would pack up gifts for my mother and load my kids into the car so that they could share part of their school vacation with their grandmother.  Unfortunately much of that vacation time was usually spent with eyes tuned to the weather channel, trying to plan our escape home before the next winter storm hit.

One year, I decided to play it smart and take the kids to visit Mom at Thanksgiving when winter weather wasn’t likely to be as threatening.  The day before Thanksgiving, we enjoyed beautiful, sunny, sixty degree weather throughout our drive across Interstate 80.  Thanksgiving morning, we awoke at Grandmother’s house to large, fluffy snowflakes which continued to fall throughout the day.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house, nearly an hour away, and ate turkey and cranberries and pie, sharing stories with cousins I hadn’t seen in years.  As evening crept in, I began to feel uneasy.  Snow had continued to fall throughout the day, and I started thinking about wet roads freezing over once the sun set and temperatures dropped.  We said our goodbyes and carefully packed up the leftover cranberries and pie.  Because Thanksgiving was over, I popped Christmas music into the tape player so we could carol our way home.

I tested my brakes a few times to see if the pavement was icy or just wet, and chose the road through town rather than the scenic drive through narrow, twisting, tree-lined back roads.  Just a few miles before reaching my mom’s house, however, my daughter gasped as the car began to spin.  As it turns out, those signs which read, Bridge Freezes Before Road Surface, are there for a reason.

We had hit a patch of black ice, and I had become completely powerless to bring my car under control.  My immediate thought was, “I’ve just killed both of my children and my mother.” My next thought was prayer, “Lord.These children belong to you.”

So often life feels like this, as though I’ve hit a patch of black ice and I have no ability to stop the spinning.  I don’t know when I’ll stop or where I’ll stop or how much it will hurt when I do.  I know I am powerless and circumstances are completely beyond my ability to control.

In the book of Isaiah I read about God’s people trembling at the approach of the mighty Assyrian army.  The Assyrians were savage and fierce. They thundered down the road toward Jerusalem and were seemingly unstoppable, these instruments called by God to discipline His people.  It probably seemed as though life for God’s people had spun completely and utterly out of control.  But then Isaiah spoke these words about the approaching army:

This day they will halt at Nob; they will shake their fist at the mount of the Daughter of Zion, at the hill of Jerusalem.  Isaiah 10:32.

God stopped the army at Nob.  He halted the danger within spitting distance of His royal city.  The enemies of God’s people could shake their fists at Jerusalem, but no more.  God had allowed evildoers to advance but brought them to a screeching halt when His purposes had been accomplished.

God halted my spinning car.  By the time He did, we had spun across two lanes of a divided highway, crossed the median and two lanes of oncoming traffic, rolled over and landed upside down, leftover cranberries and pumpkin pie smashed into the ceiling.  Through the stereo speakers, Andy Williams’ voice continued to sing, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

The driver’s side window had shattered, and I literally crawled across crushed glass to get to my mother and children.  I heard their sweet voices,

I’m okay, each called out.

Wow, now we can get a car with a CD player! my son said, finding the good in the terrifying.

And there was good yet to come. Cars pulled over and stopped, presumably to see if anyone was still alive.  They offered blankets to keep us warm. One of the first to stop was a nurse. Or maybe she was an angel;  I don’t know. I do know she was summoned by my loving heavenly Father, and she came.

My seventy-five year-old mother hung suspended upside-down in the car, strapped in by her seat belt. The nurse cautioned us against trying to release Mom until an ambulance arrived, thus preventing her from falling and sustaining a severe injury. This kind stranger sat with my mother inside the car, checking mom’s pulse; keeping her calm.

We should have been dead, all of us, but each walked away without a scratch. And I walked away with more—comfort and assurance that my children did, indeed, belong to the Lord Jesus Christ; security in knowing that our lives are in His hands, confidence in knowing that God has purposes yet to fulfill in and through us.

I don’t have control over the icy patches in life, the evil places in this broken, fallen world that threaten the lives and happiness of those I love. But I do know Who does. And He will stop the spinning when He has accomplished His purposes.



Originally published November 10, 2010