I didn’t know if I wanted to discuss the matter; however, I still have some feelings that I need to release….so I will release them into my private corner of the world, for anyone who can relate to see.

We all know that God has our lives planned out for us; he knows the plans he has for us. So even when twists and turns throw us off that path, we hesitate. We wonder, “why God, why me? Why did you do this to me? How does this help me on the path you have set out for me?”

I don’t know the exact answer, but I would dare to think that God might say, “well, I didn’t tell you it would be peaches and cream, now did I?”

I am a firm believer that God places things in our paths, or has us experience things for a reason. It may be an obvious reason; or it may be something deeper. It may have an immediate connection to you, or it may take some time for you to figure it out. Either way, just like the quote says, “everything happens for a reason.” Anything that has happened to me, anything I have experienced, I know that there was a reason God placed it in my life. Whether it was to learn the easy way, the hard way, to show me that not all things are for my good, etc. whatever it has been, I know there is a reason.

Something happened to me yesterday, that in a physical sense, feels like it knocked me square down to reality. I was involved in a car accident. I was hit so hard, I thought my car was going to fall on its side. Immediately after, my mind was everywhere. I was freaking out.

Now, in a spiritual sense, there are so many things I am grateful for in that moment, when I opened my door and stepped out of my truck. My life was in tact. The other driver’s life was in tact, my daughter was not in the car, the damage to my car, was actually not nearly as severe as it felt, I walked away mentally and physically safe, I have a community of people who did not hesitate to check on me and my well being, it was the back of my car, and not the front where I was sitting, it was the passenger side and not the driver side, my air bags worked, my emergency system in my truck worked, from an adulting perspective, I have the means and proper insurance that all of this will be taken care of. And most importantly again, my life is in tact.

Yesterday, from a material perspective, I beat myself up pretty bad about all the other contingencies of the situation: how could I have been so careless, how could I have put someone else’s life in danger, I just bought this vehicle, and now it is possibly completely totaled out with one second of unawareness. Despite how emotional that part of the situation makes me, I believe God continues to circle me back to the bottom line and the one thing that trumps all of this: I have my life. I can buy another vehicle, I can have another chance to live life. Nothing else really matters when you think about that. But sometimes, you can’t help but beat yourself up about the daily circumstances of a situation.

I’m sure the thought of this will continue to effect me in some way for a little while, as this is probably the worst accident I have ever been in (and I’ve only been in 2 major accidents counting this one, aside from minor fender benders), but I still reflect on the lesson/message/reason behind all of this. Maybe God needed to recenter me around the things that really matter in life. So many days, I wonder about so much. I think about work, I think about school, I think about parenting, relationships, connections, money, etc. I let so many things cloud my mind, fill me up with worry; and in a split second, none of it could’ve mattered, because I could’ve very well not walked away from a car accident yesterday. I thank God that I could walk away, because someone in this world took their last breath. I did not take mine, and I don’t take that for granted.

So, I think I am going to take this moment to remind myself, that all these things don’t mean anything, if you’re not here on earth to experience it. And I need to thank God for every moment that I’m still breathing.