Praising God~Part II

There were so many things to be thankful for this past weekend and I didn't want one to take away from the other.

Saturday morning when we were on our way to the golf course to get things ready for the kickoff of the 1st Annual Brothers for Hope St. Jude Golf Classic, we saw a friend of ours ahead of us. Roger called him on his cell phone because we thought he was going to the same place we were.

However, he began to tell us about his daughter, McKenzie's ball team that morning. After arriving at the golf course and during the day, we found out more and more details of how God miraculously spared the lives of this entire ball team and their families

This is a 10 and under, competitive, fast pitch girls softball team. They were headed to a tournament about 2 1/2 hours away early Saturday morning. It was or had been raining as they traveled down I-40 (one of the worst stretches of interstate...known for so many deadly wrecks) and as usual...there was construction going on.

The 1st of 3 wrecks had already occurred earlier in the morning and the interstate was backed up. They were routing the traffic off the interstate and onto the old highway to keep traffic moving. However, there wasn't a state trooper or anyone warning motorist of the sudden detour. They only had orange cones set up to redirect traffic off the interstate at the Wheatley exit. A couple of ladies were driving, suddenly realized where they were supposed to go and tried to get off, went under a tractor trailer and the change reaction began. Those two ladies were killed instantly.

The caravan of softball players and their parents were right behind...the now, 2nd wreck had just happened. Traffic starts stopping and an tractor trailer rear ended one of our parents at about 70 miles an hour. Other drivers were able to pull him free of the wreckage before his truck burst into flames. It is not known right now if he lived or not but he was in real bad shape.

The family that he hit wasn't hurt. But, the caravan following that truck were also involved. Another parent saw the traffic stopping and a tractor trailer barrelling down on her, so she took the ditch instead of getting rear ended.

That SUV was carrying another child who's parents were going to be at the golf tournament and weren't with their child. What a sick feeling they had when they received that phone call. She said that she had a sick feeling when she put her daughter in the car with another parent who she trust to take her daughter anywhere. She kept asking herself..."what is wrong with me, why am I feeling this way?" She soon found out what those feelings were all about.

Another car was carrying a family that I grew up with plus the mother-in-law. Their car was destroyed beyond recognition because they got it from the front and the back.

One of my best friend's daughter (who's father was ahead of us that morning) should have been in the caravan but wasn't playing that day because she had a church event that kept her at home. PTL!

All in all, several vehicles belonging to our ball team were totalled BUT, NOT ONE ADULT OR CHILD WAS INJURED beyond cuts, scrapes, bruises, sore and just being shook up.

Psalm 121:8
the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. (NIV)

Psalm 91:11
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; (NIV)

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Another thing that I am praising God for today is that Brandon was here with us Saturday night, went to church with us on Sunday and we had lunch with my mom yesterday afternoon before I had to take him back to work.

We had a powerful, illustrated sermon yesterday morning and the seed of TRUTH was planted. I have been praying since I knew that he was coming that God would cultivate the soil of his heart so that the seeds would not fall on thorny ground. Only God knows exactly what Brandon is thinking or feeling because he is good at putting up smoke screens or telling you what you want to hear...or he just reminds silent.

I am just so thankful to get to spend some time with him this weekend.

Have a wonderfully blessed day!