TRAUMA & PRAYER

This verse was emailed to me on May 7, 2007 as a chain letter from a co-worker. Usually, I do not participate in chain letters, but I had been compelled that evening to follow the instructions.The direction was to send it on to twelve friends and pray.
I did.


Here is the prayer that was included with the email letter:

May today be all that you need it to be today. May the peace of God and the freshness of the Holy Spirit rest in your thoughts, rule in your dreams tonight and conquer all your fears. May God manifest himself today in ways that you have never experienced. May your joys be fulfilled, your dreams be closer and your prayers be answered. I pray that faith enters a new height for you; I pray that your territory is enlarged and I pray that you step into your destiny within the ministry. I pray for peace, health, happiness and true undying love for God. I didn’t give any further thought to the letter until the next day after I was involved in a car accident.

On the morning of May 8 I left home headed toward Dallas for a 3 day training class. I had a new job as bookkeeper for The Salvation Army assigned to the Temple Corps. The morning was clear, the roads dry, my cup of coffee nestled in its holder, 91.3 FM playing softly on the radio and my cruise control set to 65 mph. It was to be a good morning and the start of a good day of training.

My day was about to change!

I was just about to Exit 303 on the north side of Temple on Interstate 35 when suddenly I was traveling backward--with my passenger doors scraping along the inside median! As I was traveling backward, I was praying out loud and asking for my guardian angels to come to help me. I held on to the steering wheel as hard as I could and managed to keep the car on the inside median. When my car came to a standstill, all I could see was the oncoming traffic and again prayed that no one would hit my car. I began flashing my car lights on and off so that they could see that I was there in the small middle area next to the barricades.

Fortunately, no one hit my car while I was parked there. By this time my car would not start again, so I climbed out, grabbed my cell phone and purse and walked south away from my car, climbed over the center median barrier and sat down on the median wall to steady myself and my wobbly legs.

Within a few minutes I was dialing 911 for assistance, and when there was a break in the traffic, I crossed over to the east side of the expressway and sat in the tall grass.

It took a few moments for me to realize what had happened. At first I thought I must have blown a tire. That wasn’t the case. The driver of a truck parked a little further north had walked back, asked if I was okay, sat next to me and held my hand. He said he hit me and that he forgot I was there when he moved back into the far right lane. It wasn’t until I was sitting there talking to him that I really knew what happened. I had been sideswiped by a semi truck.

Fire trucks and paramedics arrived within minutes. Amazingly, no one else was involved in this incident. Later, I imagined there must have been dozens of guardian angels flying around protecting everyone driving that morning.

As I was transported to the hospital I wondered how I escaped with what seemed to be little injury. Within a few hours they released me to my home to sleep and recover. This accident could have been much worse. All I knew was that I was alive—bumped and bruised and a terrible headache—but I was alive!

Is there power in prayer? Yes! There is power in prayer even through the simple act of sending, receiving and praying for friends when they send a chain letter and ask you to share it with someone else. This was one email and one prayer that I believe changed my life and kept me safe.