Tonight I was driving up to Portland for our small group meeting listening to my music and letting my mind think and wander where it pleased as I drove. I was just switching lanes to let someone who wanted to go faster than me pass by when I saw everyone was slowing down ahead of me so I changed my mind and stayed in the far left lane. I noticed about two cars had stopped in each direction and people were out on the road when a second after that, I saw a billowing black cloud starting to rise up to the sky and then burned into my eyes was a sight I won't soon forget. A white truck was upside down in the grassy median facing south, a pleasure boat was leaning against the truck facing up as if it was about to go over a really tall wave. The WHOLE scene was engulfed in bright orange flames high into the sky. I could feel the heat on my face and arm as I passed. There were no emergency vehicles around the scene, it had JUST happened. I thought to myself, "There is no way anyone could have escaped that upside down truck before it exploded." The flames were already all consuming. How could anyone have made it out alive?
For the rest of the drive, I thought about a truth in a book I've been reading that talked about how precious life is and how we need to treasure every moment as if we could be called home at any time. Having tea with a friend, walking a dog, reading a book, how uncomprehendingly priceless those moments are! What a beautiful gift is every breath we take, every person we touch, every sky we see. Our hands are full of treasure and we don't know it. What a miraculous thing life is and how quickly it can be gone. Please see it for what it is worth.
After I got home, I checked online to see if the paper had anything about the accident. It turns out, an older couple were driving northbound to Portland after vacationing at Detroit Lake, (their truck must have flipped backwards as well as over), when the boat they were towing started to fishtail. They tried to correct it, but their vehicle slid across the traffic lanes and flipped into the median. Their daughter was driving in another vehicle behind them and must have seen the whole thing. She was probably one of the people I saw on the side of the road. It turns out, someone else was there too for while the passenger section of the truck was already on fire, two people pulled the couple out 25 seconds before the propane tank exploded. The husband is being treated for serious burns and the woman got a ride with her daughter.
So tonight I am on my knees thanking God for the lives of people I will probably never meet and for the lives of whoever pulled them out of that truck. And I am also on my knees thanking God for my own life and the lives of those I love. Seeing that scene tonight certainly deepened my awareness of how precious just being alive really is.
365-09 #233Labels: 365-09 Challenge