Just stay in the middle lane and you’ll be all right, I told myself, driving on the Los Angeles freeway one sunny afternoon. I was headed back home from my job as an office manager at my husband’s company, and as many times as I’d made the commute, I still got nervous. I didn’t learn to drive until my twenties, and it had been tough getting accustomed to southern California’s busy, congested freeways and fast-moving traffic.
“I hate driving on the freeway,” I often told my husband. “It would be so easy to get into an accident with all the crazy drivers.”
He always tried to reassure me. “As long as you drive safely,” he said, “you can trust that God will be with you.”
Over the years, I formed the habit of staying in the middle lane until it was time to exit, leaving the left lane for those wanting to drive fast and the right lane for anyone entering and exiting the freeway. So far, I’d been accident-free.
Now, I kept a safe distance from the United Parcel truck in front of me, and tried to put aside my worries. I thought instead about preparing dinner for my husband, our son and three daughters. Do I have everything I need or should I stop at the market on the way home? I wondered.
Right then a voice broke into my thoughts: “Change lanes now!”
The voice I heard was so firm, so insistent, I immediately checked my mirrors, saw that there was plenty of room and moved over.
Bang! A loud noise made me look back to my left. The United Parcel truck seemed to have hit something in the road. Suddenly, from underneath the truck’s back wheels, a large piece of sheet metal shot up into the air. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as I watched the sheet fly at eye level before crashing back down to the pavement.
In my rear view mirror, I watched with relief as the cars in the middle lane slowed down and avoided the metal in the middle lane. I could have been in a terrible accident, if it hadn’t been for that voice…
