DailySusan Humor Blog

ANSWERS FOR C.J.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
-- Isaiah 55:9

My friend C.J. said:

‘’Now I know why I broke my leg and my kid totaled his car.’’

I took the bait. OK. Why, and why?

First, her leg. That summer, C.J. didn’t have to work. She was eager to spend it with her husband and two boys.

They had arranged to go on a big vacation for three weeks in a van out to Wyoming, to visit his sister and do all the Wild, Wild West stuff.

What’d she do? She broke her leg.

She was working in her yard and walked over to the faucet. She slipped on some damp mulch.

She did a funky pirouette . . . and landed, kerplunk! like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, with her ankle twisted ‘way over THERE, and her hip twisted ‘way over THERE.

Nobody came. She tried turning the faucet off and on, off and on. She beat on the side of the house with her watering wand.

Finally, her husband stalked outside, mad about the noises ‘til he saw her . . . and then they were both sad. She couldn’t go on the trip. She lay on her couch, growsing and complaining, feeling sorry for herself. . . .

. . . when she got a bright idea.

‘’Why don’t you take your mother?’’ she suggested to her husband. ‘’She could take care of the boys.’’

She gladly agreed. And it was a wonderful trip. The boys still talk about getting chased by a buffalo and how the younger one ordered chicken nuggets and fries, morning, noon and night, the whole three weeks.

C.J. got a long rest, a busy mother’s dream. Her husband spent quality time with his mom. The grandmother felt needed and cherished. The grandsons developed lifelong memories.

A while later, the grandmother died.

And C.J. knew why she broke her leg.

‘’I couldn’t have known how precious that time together would turn out to be,’’ she says now. ‘’You don’t recognize God’s intervention at the time.’’

Same thing with her son’s crash a few years later.

It was his first car. Boy, was he proud. He had just gotten new tires, too.

Well, he took two girlfriends out one night, and was stopped at a traffic light at a busy intersection. Because of his new tires, he didn’t want to drive on the muddy shoulder to turn right. So he just stayed put.

SMASH!!!!!

A car rear-ended them!

He’s a strong young man. He clung to the wheel and kept his foot firmly on the brake. Otherwise, his car would surely have rammed into the little bitty car in front. . . .

. . . which was holding a little bitty old man and his little bitty old wife. They’d have been killed had they been pushed out into the intersection.

The dad was speechless. As a law enforcement professional, he’s seen many crashes. He knew there was no reason the gas tank hadn’t exploded. You could see it, right there. It wasn’t even cracked.

There was no reason, too, that the whole back half of the car had been smooshed into smithereens . . . right up to the very edge of the back seat, where one of the girls had been sitting. The car was perfectly OK from that point forward. The kids, all seat-belted, were perfectly OK.

So the car was totaled in a way that minimized the maximum damage. Their son is out some money, but he now knows how it feels to pretty much save people’s lives.

C.J.’s not exactly looking for more trials. But when they come, she just waits for an answer to that question we all ask: ‘’Why?’’

She’ll get the answer someday . . . because God knows.

That’s good enough for C.J. And though I do my share of funky pirouettes in the meantime, it’s good enough for me.

-------------------------------------------------

Prayer request: We fall before Your Throne, Lord, on behalf of a marriage that is in trouble. We lift up Ken and Joyce, who refuse counseling but appear need it desperately. There are reports of verbal and emotional abuse, multiple personalities, and estrangement with Ken’s own adult children. Ken was once close to You, and wants to honor his wedding vows. All the family can do is ask others to help pray for a breakthrough and to fight for them until they are strong enough to fight for themselves. Holy Spirit of Jesus, come to Ken and Joyce, and help them save their marriage. (Ephesians 6:10-19)