IT'S A GOD THING

Our friend Diana has this saying – “it’s a God thing.” She uses that saying to refer to those moments when you just know that God has to be a part of it. I had one of those moments this morning.

I was driving Maggie to school and heading north on MLK Jr. Blvd. MLK is something of a racetrack anyway, but particularly so first thing in the morning as everyone is rushing to work. At the corner of Garfield and MLK is Harris Elementary School - - I do slow down as I enter the school zone, though I must admit that it is seldom do I slow to the 20 mph that is posted. I usually slow down to about 30 mph and then watch as everyone else goes flying around me past the school at the standard 45 – 50 mph that seems to be the standard speed on MLK. It is actually quite a dangerous area for the school because of the high amount of kids that walk to school, combined with the parents dropping off kids and the school buses.

Anyway, for whatever reason today, something told me to slow down to 20 mph. (It had to be a God thing.) As soon as I passed the Garfield intersection, there was a school bus pulled over in the right hand northbound lane that caused an obstructed view for parents trying to pull out of the parking lot. (There are two northbound lanes and two southbound lanes.) Instead of waiting for the bus to move, one parent decide to go ahead and pull out into a southbound lane - - right in front of me in the other northbound lane. I had no warning because I was no sooner past the school bus, and there was the car. I slammed on my brakes and everything in the car went flying - - my purse and work satchel ended up in the floor, as did Maggie’s bookbag in the back seat. We both collectively sucked in a big gulp of air at the same time. Because I had only been going 20 mph, I was able to stop in time. Our car stopped literally mere inches from the back door of the other car where an infant was strapped into a car seat.

But we were ok and they were ok. No crash. No collision. Just a God thing.