Thank you God for telephone poles…

O.K. so I know that is a title that will get everyone going “huh?” let me explain what has been a traumatic 24 hours since 6:37am yesterday (Feb 1st) morning. Sorry it’s long but I need to write it all.

Yesterday was the annual “first day for new registrations” at the private school my wife works at. It is the craziest, busiest day of the year. So crazy in fact that people start camping in front of the school from the previous day just so they can get a high enough number to get their child into MEI (thankfully once your children are in you only have to renew your registration so you don’t have to go through this). Obviously Kindergarten is the biggest issue as those are all new students and my wife Cheryll is the person in charge of the elementary grade school registration.

Registration day is also Cheryll’s favourite day of the year because with her job she spends quite a few months working on all the necessary supporting stuff around getting ready for it and then the next few months sorting it out (wait-lists, assessments, etc.) It is her job and she loves it. It also means that she has to go into work on registration day for 7:00am which is an hour earlier than normal and means that daddy (that would be me!) gets to take care of making sure that Chelsea gets to daycare and the two boys get to school. She was so excited when she left the house and I could tell it was going to be a great day. How wrong I was…

So here I am getting ready to sit down with the kids for breakfast when the phone rings…
“Hi”, I say knowing it is Cheryll (caller ID is a wonderful thing) and figuring she probably forgot to tell me something.

In a shaky voice I hear on the other end of the phone “I’ve been in an accident, I’m o.k. but the van is really bad”.

Needless to say I’m not expecting this and so I ask “Are you sure you are ok, have you called the police”

“I’ve already called them, there on their way, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”

“Where are you?”

“I’m on Old Clayburn (which is just down the hill 3 blocks from our house), I’m o.k. I’m o.k. but the van is really bad”

Needless to say the conversation went on like this for a couple of minutes with me continuing to ask Cheryll if she was ok and her pretty much answering the same way. I told her I was coming down and then she got really upset and told me not to bring the kids, I told her I would leave them at home as Nathan was taking care of making them their waffles (he’s a good helper) and as it was so close I would just come down, make sure everything was ok and then come back and take them to school.

I get in my car and start heading down the road and overnight the temperature had dropped dramatically and there had been some wet snow which had turned somewhat icy. I could tell right away the roads were not good and of course with the call I had gotten I was cautious as I could be. As I get 5 blocks away from our house I come up over a small rise in the road and I can see flashing lights (it’s still pretty dark out here at 7 am in the winter), shortly thereafter I see our van on the opposite side of the road from where it should be right in front of a telephone pole. As I pull up I can see the front end of the van right in the middle is pushed in so far it almost is touching the bottom of the windshield. A horrific force she must have hit this pole at. I then see Cheryll and the police officers and I get out of my car and walk over to see her…”I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me”. All I can say as I see her limping is “Are you ok, what happened?”

Cheryll proceeds to tell me how she was coming up the rise of the little hill and as she got to the top and the road started to fall off she realized that while she didn’t think she was speeding, she was going too fast for the icy conditions and stepped on the brakes to slow down. Well with the ice and the snow and the ice under the snow that sent her into an immediate slide. She first slid over to the right hand side of the road (remember for those of you in the other parts of the world who drive on the left hand side this is North America so this is our side of the road) and started to go up onto the sidewalk and heading straight for a fire hydrant and a small hedge of little trees (about 7 foot mini cedars). She immediately tried to correct the van and in doing so managed to get turned left and just brushed the left hand side of the fire hydrant missing the hedge altogether. Unfortunately in doing that she went back on the road which was now falling off to the left hand side. She tells me all she could think at this point was as soon as she got straightened out she was going to go really really slow no matter how long it took to get to work (which under normal driving conditions would be about an 8-10 minute drive from where she was), unfortunately that thought did not last long as she started to slide right across the road heading straight for a telephone pole on the other side of the road. Her next thought was “I’m not going to make it and even though she tried to turn she hit the pole head on”. Airbags deployed, seatbelts broke, coffee cups flew (somehow not getting any on her…go figure) and the van stopped dead (of course the engine kept running because that makes all the sense in the world).

I’d like to think I reacted well but I didn’t. I remember asking her how fast she was going and that obviously it was faster than the conditions allowed for (my pet peeve) and all I could think at that point was “oh crap, the van is only 4 years old, it will be a write-off and we’ll get no where near what it is going to take for us to replace it.” Cheryll went into the ambulance at that point as they wanted to check her out. She kept saying “I’m ok I’m ok”, she still wanted to get to work as fast as she could. But about 5 minutes later the paramedic came out and let me know they were just going to take her to the hospital to check on her knee which was pretty sore. In the meantime I had gathered up a lot of personal stuff that was in the van and thrown it into the car to take home so I poked my head in the ambulance and asked her if she was ok again and let her know I would take the kids to school and then I would come to the hospital. In typical Cheryll fashion, thinking of everyone else but herself she says to me “But you need to help lead worship at the school this morning”. I told her that I would deal with that and that I would be at the hospital (I was helping out the principal, Cheryll’s boss, and so he led without me…)

I went home, picked up the kids, explained to them that mommy was ok, they were just taking her to get her knee looked at because it was a little sore, but she was ok. They asked about the van and I had to tell them that the van was not ok and that we probably were not going to have it anymore. Shane (our 6 year old) was quite upset by this “but I love our van”. You see it’s really the only car he ever remembers his mom having. I explained to him that the van, while very special, was just a van and the most important thing was that mommy was ok (of course it would have helped if I had said that when I saw Cheryll at the accident site).

I dropped Chelsea off at daycare and then took the boys to school. It was only once all three of them were gone that the accident hit me and I got very emotional and shaky.

The part I didn’t tell you at the start was that while yes Cheryll had hit the telephone pole it could have been much much worse. As Cheryll started to careen across the road towards the telephone pole and realized that she was not going to be able to avoid it what she didn’t realize was that even in this time of horror and devastation our Lord’s hand was at work in keeping her safe. You see behind the telephone pole was an embankment that went down a long way on the left hand side and not quite so far on the right hand side. Had Cheryll not hit that telephone pole she would have gone off that embankment in our van doing a fair speed and quite frankly while you can’t say for sure what would have happened I would have to say that I don’t think my wife would have survived that kind of crash. This was the realization that hit me as I started to drive to the hospital. I could have lost my wife, my best friend, the mother of our children, the woman who when World Vision came calling said to me. “Mike, this is something you need to go do, even though it will be hard when you are away, we will manage. The Lord is calling you to this ministry. God has blessed me by allowing me to work at MEI and all I can tell you is that I can’t imagine doing anything else so you need to do this and we’ll do this together”. All of this could have happened if not for a telephone pole that God saw fit to put in the way of my wife to keep her safe.

Cheryll is doing fine (very sore right now) although upon taking her to the hospital they discovered she had a cracked knee-cap and will be in a splint for the next 6 weeks (or longer) while it heals. Again, what could have been much worse wasn’t as if the two parts of the broken knee-cap had “detached” she would have had to have had re-constructive surgery. Because of this she is just inconvenienced with a splint (and as she is very thankful for it not being a cast). Please continue to pray for Cheryll as she recovers and for us both as we potentially have to look for a new vehicle (highly likely).

So while the van is probably a write-off (we will likely find out on Monday) and it means that we need to go find a new car for Cheryll, which will likely cost more than we will get from the insurance company, I think about the bible verses from Matthew 6:19-21 “19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

My treasure on this earth is not a piece of metal (in this case a van). It is my family, my wife, my children, friends and those whom I minister with. My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is my treasure in heaven and on earth and heaven this is where my heart is. It is He whom I serve with all my heart and soul, it is to Him that all praise and worship is due, it is to He the one who saves (and protects) that I say loudly

“Thank you God for telephone poles!”

May the Lord bring you blessings and peace and keep you and those you love safe,

Mike.