Almost Dying

Yesterday I went to the beach with Corisa because we were meeting my sister Mary and her husband and his dad's church there for a bonfire. On the way, no joke, we almost died.

I was driving and we were on the 55 freeway in the carpool lane. The cars in front of me suddenly braked and I slammed on my breaks and we started to swerve to the median I thought for sure we were going to crash into it but then we started swerving the other way towards the other lanes. I am not even completely sure what happened but I'm pretty sure we started going back towards the median and then back towards the other lanes but then this time we ended up doing a complete 180 on the freeway. We are facing the oncoming traffic. And the car behind us is a big truck, like a Uhaul or something. I am straddling the line and no car is even coming close to hitting us. So I just put my foot on the accelerator and we keep driving like nothing happened.

In the brief probably 10 seconds so many things went through my head. One of my thoughts was that I can't believe I am going to kill Corisa. Another thought is that this feels exactly like a scene from Alias. Another thing I am thinking about is what do they tell you not to do when you lose control of the car? And yet, through it all, I felt an incredible peace about what was happening. Like I knew that we were going to be okay. And if we weren't going to be okay then I was totally okay with dying. I just would not have liked taking Cor with me. She has too much left to do in this world.

And then afterwards I felt such a wide range of emotions. I wanted to cry, I wanted to throw up, I wanted to pray and thank God, I wanted to freakout. But I just kept driving. I got into the slow lane and definitely kept with the speed limit.

Me and Cor kept talking about it the rest of the day and we really could not believe that we did not die. We didn't even get in any type of crash or scrape. God was definitely there on the freeway protecting us.

Death is such an imminent thing for everyone and we are all scared of it in some way. Some of us have a faith that doesn't make us afraid of life after death but maybe we are more scared for the people that we leave behing. I am okay with dying because it means that I get to spend eternity with Jesus. I just worry about the people that I would leave behind and I wouldn't want them to be sad. Yesterday, if I would have died, my sister would forever remember her birthday as the day her sister died. She would hate her birthday, (she told me this, I am not that conceited thinking that she would not be able to live without me.) And what if I die right after I get married, I would not want my husband to fall into a depression or anything.

But we cannot choose how we die or anything of that sorts. We cannot choose whose lives will be affected by our deaths so really I think what I learned from almost dying is that I am still alive, still breathing, still on fire for Jesus, still able to serve, still driving, still walking, still everything and I don't want to regret anything.