When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee…—Isaiah 43:2
I was driving through a rainstorm in upstate New York one Friday last spring, headed east on Route 23 toward my house in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Millie, barely a year old, was curled up in the back of the Jeep in her dog bed.
There was a crack of thunder, and lightning slashed at the Berkshire Hills ahead. Then negotiating a curve beside a nearly overflowing swamp, I felt the wheels slip from under me. Foolishly, I must have hit the brakes instead of steering with the skid. We veered off the road toward the swamp, and all of a sudden we were airborne.
The Jeep rolled once, twice, bouncing crazily down an embankment, so fast and so violently that there was no time for my mind to register it. We landed wheels down in the swamp a good twenty feet from shore and in about three feet of water. Mud and ooze caked the windshield. The passenger’s side roof was crushed; water sloshed over the floorboards.
Millie! I undid my seatbelt, pushed the door open and waded to the back of the Jeep. She was trembling with fear but otherwise unharmed. I popped the hatch. “Honey, you’re going to have to learn to swim,” I muttered, easing her out into the water and steering her toward shore, one arm under her belly. She struggled to keep her chin above the muck and paddled heroically. “Good girl!”
Cars had pulled over and people met us with blankets and looks of amazement. One woman, a total stranger, hugged me and said, “It’s a miracle you survived. I saw the whole thing. There was an angel watching over you and your dog.”
I was aware of very little when the Jeep flipped over. But Someone was in control.
I have no doubt now, God, that in my greatest need You are closer than ever.
ORDER EDWARD GRINNAN’S NEW MEMOIR, ALWAYS BY MY SIDE
