The Debt Free Decision that Saved My Life

Our settlement is finally paid, and even though we didn't sue, we still got enough to pay for all of our closing cost on the new house and other needs like a rental! So, for those who are new readers, I'm republishing this bit of a post...the story of the debt-free decision that literally saved two lives--mine and my unborn child!

Two Lives Saved!

The unthinkable happened. It would change my life for good. A drunk driver hit me.

For years I had been driving a little Saturn because we were determined to remain debt free from anything that wasn’t life threatening. But I was pregnant and we were about to have a family too big to FIT into the cars we had. We had $2600 saved in the bank. We were determined to stay under that, but what in the world could you pay cash for that would run, had air, and was big enough for our family without going over $2600? Not much.

It was an enormous brown full size custom van. This van was huge! And I believe with all that’s in me that it was because of our wonderful, marvelous God that it was the only vehicle to meet our criteria that we could afford. A drunk driver collided into the driver’s side of that big ol BEAUTIFUL van right under where I sat! Did you get that? Only a couple months before, I would have been 3 feet lower. Think about that for just a minute. And this driver was not going 30 miles an hour. It was on the intersection of a freeway and when he collided into me it pushed that 2 ton van up off the ground and over 2 lanes, a median the size of two lanes, pancaked a speed sign and landed on the opposite side of the median. How fast do you think that was? I’m not sure. But fast.

I was 6 ½ months pregnant. Little Joshua is fine--Praise God!

I wasn't actually sure at first. It took a full hour before I felt any movement at all. When I saw the burst of flames and the orange glow surrounding me, I felt no pain. It didn't touch me and the heat felt only like a warm fireplace too close. My glasses had flown off my face and I couldn't see much, but tried the door on the other side. It wouldn't budge--I don't know why--possibly I just couldn't see well enough to grab it well. I didn't even think about my purse and iphone I left in the van. I jumped over the tv console, jabbing my head on something above and not noticing until I reached the hospital. I jumped from the side doors and landed about 5 feet away from the van. Glancing back, the flames had already reached where I had sat.

A gentleman ran toward me and I yelled toward him that I couldn't see where I was going. He grabbed my hand and put his arm around my waist and led me about 30 feet away. As soon as I sat down, something from inside the van exploded! The flames quickly escalated and bellowed high above the two overpasses.

God saved my life…and He did it with the first vehicle we bought without paying debt!!!

The car I had been driving was tiny. That kind of high-speed impact in a low-sitting light-weight vehicle would have killed me or my baby, or both. But! But God knew what we could not and used our obedience to buying a vehicle without using debt to save our lives.

Little Miracle:

In the midst of this huge miracle, there were a lot of little miracles, only one of which I'm going to share with you here.

My iPhone, during the wreck, flew out the side window opposite me. The heat from the blast melted the case and bits and peices of it. I thought I had lost it along with my purse and it contained lots of pregnancy pictures and pics of my kids. This was before iCloud. The iPhone was clearly ruined, but Josh decided to plug it in anyway, since that part didn't appear damaged. Amazingly, everything loaded right onto my computer!

I had lost my purse, carseats, a book, my glasses, my gps, and a few other things...all replacable, but the only non-living irreplacable thing, my pictures, were saved.


Sharing this with:

Titus 2 Tuesday