Grace, Next Exit

“Morning by morning new mercies I see.”

          —Chisholm, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” 

KIRKLAND, Wash., Nov. 28

It’s fitting that when my car was rear-ended Thanksgiving afternoon, there was a rainbow over Interstate 5.  It was a symbol of God’s promise, God’s power.

In 1863, President Lincoln asked us to “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”  This Thanksgiving, I’m reminded of God’s intense goodness, the small mercies that may not be so small at all, and his promises—to protect his people, to watch over us for good, and to be with us in the storms of life.

I’ve walked away from an accident with my sense of humor intact, and early returns say I’m healthy, if a tiny bit sore.  It could have been much worse.

The car is probably totaled, says Bill the Tow Truck Guy.  The airbags deployed, the windshield was cracked beyond any further usefulness, the hood was damaged.  For a 2001 model-year car, it’s about all I could have hoped for.  But I myself walked away.

Actually, the car itself was a testimony to God’s providence from the start.  I never asked for that car.

A few years ago, I was working part-time as a youth director, commuting 90 minutes via three King County buses each way to work.  I’ve always been fascinated by public transit, so I didn’t mind.  But after a year there, a co-leader in the youth program told me he was going to procure a car—free of charge to me—so that I could spend time with the youth without having the burden of transit.  Almost before I could object that interns don’t usually get cars, it was sitting in front of my apartment.  The church even paid the insurance.

I’ve continued to be thankful to that family for letting me borrow the car (they later allowed me to purchase it from them at a very hospitable discount) and for the road trips and ministry moments that God enabled through it.  That little Corolla, ten years old and only 78,349 miles on the odometer when I first drove it, took me north to Kelowna, B.C., east to Idaho, south to Tigard, Ore., and west to the Pacific before it finally met its end.

And not only was the car a miracle of providence: it was, in fact, safe to drive; that’s not always a given right now.  A few weeks ago, when all those old-model Corollas were being recalled because of airbag shrapnel, I checked online to see if my 2001 model was at risk.  The oldest models in jeopardy: 2002.  And yesterday, I walked away from an airbag deployment shrapnel-free: all praise to a very faithful God.

I know I have to resist the temptation to equate “I survived an accident” with “I must therefore be more highly valuable to God than most.”  That doesn’t hold.  Lots of the heroes of the faith died untimely.  Jim Elliot was one.  So were St. Peter and most of the disciples.  So did Dr. King.  And faithful servants of the Lord are killed by accident every day—Rich Mullins died in a car accident—or as martyrs, or for reasons we know not why.

Nor is mine the most important story this week.  This was, after all, the week of the Ferguson verdict, and the nation is reeling in its aftermath.  A single accident on a Washington State freeway doesn’t deserve the attention due the important conversations around race, justice, and truth that we urgently need to have.

But even so, in this season of giving thanks, I’m walking free from a wreck: and I marvel at the providence of a God who reminds me that he is in control, that he watches over, that he provides every need.

The time may come when I don’t survive an accident, or when I am seriously injured.  In that case, I’ll be able to say “Thank you, Lord” for walking with me through the grief, pain, and “why?” that will come after.  Or maybe I’ll be in a position to say “Thank you, Lord” for salvation and the start of eternal life in God’s presence.  Not every accident will be survived.  But today, I’ll say thanks to God for the ones that are.

“When the bow is in the clouds,” said God after the flood, “I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (Gen. 9:16).  The Lord promised we’d never again see the world destroyed by flood.  It still hasn’t been.  And that freeway-rainbow yesterday over a Pierce County accident scene reminds me of just how deep God’s faithfulness goes.