God is Faithful

Well, one way to increase the odds of posting this next installment in my catching up on what all’s been happening to me as my mother’s “Personal Representative” (they don’t call it Executor any more) , is to start it right after publishing the previous post.

Yes, I did say that I got in a car accident the very morning of the big yard sale. My son and his wife had returned to Tucson to help out with the sale on Saturday and also to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday. We’d spent Friday getting stuff boxed up and ready to put out on Saturday. Saturday morning I took my Jeep and went around placing yard sale signs in the medians. I was on my last sign,  pulled out of the empty lot I’d been parked in and headed down the road, focused on where I was going to place my last sign and where I’d have to park to do that. It was about 6:50am, and traffic was very light. I entered the intersection about thirty feet up the road from where I’d left the parking lot, and suddenly this black Ford pickup truck was barreling toward me from the left.

“What is THAT doing there?”  I thought in shock and disbelief. I threw on the brakes but soon realized the truck was going too fast and  I wasn’t going to be able to stop in time and so I hit it.

It pulled my car around in a half circle, and left me there in the intersection as it  ran over a small sign with a safety reflector on it in the median, continued on up the road and finally pulled over to the side. I sat in the Jeep, unhurt, but stunned. How could that have happened? “Lord,” I prayed, “what are You doing? How could You allow this today of all days?”

Well, it did have positive repercussions in areas I’d never have thought of…

But first I have to finish my story and get me out of the street. As I said, I was unhurt — bumped my head against the side window at the moment of impact but that’s all. The place where I’d run my head into a cabinet door the day before hurt worse. Within seconds an ambulance pulled up behind me and a paramedic was at my door, asking if I was okay. Turns out they were only two cars back when the accident occurred, though their view had been hampered by other cars so they’d not really seen what happened. He did ask if I remembered what color the light was… I had no memory of the light at all. Just the parking lot on the other side of the street and that big black truck coming fast where it wasn’t supposed to be…

He and his partner held back the traffic while I drove the Jeep into the nearest parking lot and right about then a police cruiser pulled up. Turns out the City of Tucson police department no longer issues citations for collisions where no one is hurt, nor do they do accident reports. They just hand out insurance information forms to each party to fill out, act as a go-between for the exchange of the filled-out forms. The participants’ insurances will have to duke it out as to who is responsible and if they can’t decide, then we split it. Terrific.

At least I got to use my cell phone. The crazy thing is that my husband’s Jeep was already out of commission that weekend with an overheating problem due to an undetermined leak. So he had to come over by bicycle. Before he arrived, the policeman, learning that my car was still drivable, escorted me the block or so back to my mother’s house where everyone came out to view the damage and commiserate. My poor Jeep. Its whole front had been shifted sideways. It did not look at all good.

We ended up getting two rental cars and as it turned out, the insurance decided to fix my Jeep… it will take 25 days, and they will cover the rental. So I’ve been driving a little silver Dodge Caliber about. It’s kind of fun.

All that went on during the yard sale, which, despite fears and even prognostications of disaster, turned out to be a resounding success. We were quite pleased with the money we made, and the stuff we got rid of, but we still had a LOT of stuff left. The jigsaw puzzles for example. My mother had almost 200 of them squirreled away in various closets, and we sold only about 3 that day. Fortunately Bookman’s Used Books took quite a few of them off our hands, and even paid us for them. But there are still probably a good 75 of them left…

Three days after the yard sale we met with the realtor, who’d been recommended to me by the lawyer. The lawyer I found on the internet while looking up ‘probate’. He’d written several articles on the subject which were quite helpful and his office was not only in Tucson, but not far from my home. It seemed an unconventional way to choose a lawyer, but would the yellow pages be better? Did I really need to interview various lawyers and do a bunch of research? The truth was, I didn’t exactly have the brain room or the time to do a lot either. I just prayed for guidance and gave it over to God. Anyway I am quite happy with the lawyer, and when we got around to discussing when we could put the house on the market, I asked if he could recommend a realtor. He did and when I contacted her, it turned out her mother in law lived in the same neighborhood as my mother had, so she was very familiar with it. I counted that a confirmation that God was indeed orchestrating all this things.

Throughout all this I’m learning more than ever and in a more hands “on” way than ever  that it’s God who does the things in my life, not me. I just have to let Him. So maybe I should have said I’m learning in a hands off way.

In any case, He’s been coming through every time.  And continues to do so.

The realtor was thrilled with my mother’s house and we had it on the market the following Saturday and after a week we’ve seen a lot of interest and as of last Friday already had two offers.

But back to the car wreck. Who’d think that could turn out to be a blessing? But it did.  Gas prices being what they are, the Dodge Caliber is the better car to have when one must drive about town all the time, dropping things off here and there… It’s an even better car to drive to Phoenix and back in… I made it the whole way up on a quarter tank of gas!

But that’s tomorrow’s tale.

1 thought on “God is Faithful

  1. Rebecca LuElla Miller

    Yes, hands off is a good way to explain it. Not easy for me to keep my hands at my side when it looks like we’re steering toward a cliff, but that’s the place where trust in Who is at the wheel comes in.

    So glad to know you weren’t hurt in the accident.

    I appreciate these updates. And I too would take the events unfolding as they are as a sign that God guided you to the right lawyer and subsequently to the right realtor. I don’t believe in coincidences.

    God’s care!

    Becky

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Rebecca LuElla Miller Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.