I might as well have been driving by myself. We were near the end of a two-hour trip from our home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, to my in-laws, in Parsons, Kansas. Glancing round the car, I saw that my husband, Jeremy, was fast asleep and our two children, seated in back, might as well have been.
They were staring off into space. It didn’t surprise me. Driving across the Great Plains could put anyone to sleep. Which is why we had all prayed before backing out our driveway, God protect us.
I was growing tired of the sameness of the scenery, myself. Empty land in every direction. Time, I decided, to get where we were going. I turned off onto a shortcut I knew–a gravelly back road that would shave about 15 minutes off our trip. We were almost there. Just another few minutes.
Off in the distance, I was happy to see, was a break from the sameness. A stand of bushes and trees. A welcome distraction, I thought. I smiled and drove toward them, thinking of the greenery in our own yard back home.
I was almost upon the stand when suddenly, from beside me, Jeremy shouted, “Train! Stop!”
I was so startled, I jammed on the brakes. And then watched as five feet in front of us, a freight train barreled by. My heart was beating as if I’d just run a marathon. “I’m so sorry, honey,” I said. “Those trees and bushes are like camouflage. I never saw the tracks.”
I was about to say something else when I stopped and eyed Jeremy. “Wait a minute. You were fast asleep,” I said. “Your waking up right then saved our lives.”
Jeremy just sat there, shaking his head. “I was asleep, Nikki,” he said. “It must have been….”
I knew exactly what Jeremy was about to say. I closed my eyes, raised my head to the heavens and smiled.
