4 Accidents and a ......... (pt3) - A Dose of Encouragement

Who would believe that you could slip on a powder?

That's exactly what happened to my husband one night on the road between Londonderry and Strabane in Northern Ireland.

   The third accident!

Fred decided to go to a prayer meeting in Strabane while I stayed at home with the kids.  Not a very unusual thing for him to do but the phone call I got about 30 mins after he left home was very unusual.

Fred was on the phone from someone's house (we didn't have mobile phones in our family all those years ago) to tell me that he had had an accident in the car and that he was fine but he would not be able to drive the car home so I would need to come and pick him up in my car.

Then a man took the phone from Fred to reassure me that Fred was okay and in his home and he could stay with them until I got there.  I got directions and then arranged for the grown-up daughter of our next door neighbours to stay with my kids while I went for Fred and her mother seeing I was rather shocked about it all decided that she would come with me.

We had no trouble knowing when we had arrived at the right place because we could see the car lying on its side in the field beside the road.  

Around the field was a wire fence with cement posts.

All we could say was

How did the car get past the posts without Fred being injured?

Fred doesn't know the answer to that one either.  

As he was driving along suddenly the car seemed to slide and it spun out of control off the road turning over a couple of times and landed in the field on its side with Fred hanging there held up by the safety belt. 

The police arrived and told him that a tanker carrying powdered milk had spilt most of its load along the road a few hours earlier but it had been washed up and they didn't think that could really be the cause of his accident.

However the next day Fred went back to the home of the man who had taken him in that night to thank him again and to take some pictures of the car before it was towed away.  


When he got there another vehicle had had the same problem and had gone off the road through the hedge at the opposite side.

 A couple of hours later another accident happened with a car going off the road at the same spot and it hit a telegraph pole.

In the end the road had to be cleaned again because it was decided that washing up the powdered milk had left a slippery skim on the surface of the road.


3 cars were written off but all three drivers were unharmed even though they would admit that they had no control of their vehicles once they hit the slippery patch.

The only person who was in control of the situation was God and we are forever thankful that he kept Fred and the other drivers safe.

There was no warning; there was nothing to visibly see as the car approached the dangerous stretch of road.

It was not Fred's fault that he had that accident.

I have often thought of how we don't have any warning when the devil is getting ready to try to harm us spiritually too.  

However God has warned us in the Bible about the nature of the devil and his intentions  towards us so that we can be prepared for the attacks to come.  
God has likened the devil to a roaring lion hoping to devour us. 
Such a strong picture.

Thankfully we have a God who is all-powerful, stronger than the enemy and when He is on our side who can stand against us.

The devil certainly could not take Fred's life that night as the car bounced off the road and into the field, those cement posts did not harm him.

 God miraculously kept Fred from all harm.

Is God in control of your life?

Have you allowed Him to be in control?      

Do you truly trust in Him?

Click Here for part 1

Click Here for part 2

Click Here for part 4

As I sit at my Desk - Coffee & Conversation

What view do you have as you sit at your computer?

Maybe you have a window to gaze through, maybe you have a wall with a family picture or some other nice thing to look at or maybe you have different views each time because you sit different places to work on a laptop.

I have a hutch shelving unit as part of the back of my desk and on the top of it I have a variety of notebooks kept in place by a set of teddy bear bookends, a picture frame and some videos between a set of bookends which have sections for notes and odds and ends.


I looked up from my chair today and was struck by what I saw (and I have seen this over and over again but today it just stood out more probably due to the way we had been praying at the church prayer meeting last night) so I really had to take a picture of it.

A bookmark I had received some years ago on a Christmas card just saying MIRACLE and a little bit behind it a greeting card from which I had torn off the front part because it has a picture of Noah's Ark (and I love Arks).

So today I was gazing at the phrase Wishing you a miracle and then there in front of it was that plain statement of fact in the bookmark.

How encouraging and inspirational is that to have to look up at as I sit at the computer?

I am just a bit disappointed that so many days & weeks had already passed and I hadn't been struck by those two objects being so close together until today, but I'm thankful I noticed it now.

I do believe God can and does do miracles!

Now I am waiting to see what the miracle (or miracles) will be,

                             because I do believe God can and does do miracles.

 Do you? 

Why We Worship 15

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"

When we were young we looked up to our parents, they were the ones who knew us, they were the ones who looked after us, they were the ones who cared about us, they were the ones who had brought us into this world.

So it should be with God, we should look up to Him and worship Him because He is our Creator and who could know or understand us better than He.

But not only is He our creator but He is the creator of the world and all that is in it.

This is something that is hard for us to fathom because as human beings we cannot fully understand how anyone could create everything.

But we are not meant to understand everything because we are not like God, we are simply asked to believe that

 

                  

 

God is who He says He is,

Are you worshipping your Creator today?

Are you worshipping your Creator today?

4 Accidents and a ...... (pt2) - A Dose of Encouragement

It all happened in July 1983 

    when our son Jonathan was 

               only 10 months old.  

He had fallen asleep in his car seat in the back of the car, I had fallen asleep in the front passenger seat, and then Fred fell asleep at the wheel.
  

We were on the motorway on the way home from Belfast and of course Fred was not supposed to be asleep.  

We all woke up when we collided with a mini bus in front.  

Not a scratch on any one of us, not a scratch on any of the teenagers in the mini bus, not much of a scratch on the mini bus, but our car was a right off.  

You see we had only slightly hit the mini bus but that had sent the car out of control and we banged into, and scraped along, the security barrier at the centre of the motorway and then swerved over and scraped along the barrier at the side of the motorway.

Regardless of all that impact on the car we were kept from harm 
by our Father God.

          The driver of the minibus was a policeman and would not let us leave the scene until we could show proof of our insurance.  A police car arrived and we were then entertained by the policemen allowing Jonathan to press buttons in the car to set off the lights and siren.  

After about an hour my parents managed to get into our house 50 miles away, find our car insurance policy and get it to the police station in Londonderry.  We were then taken by police car to the station in Antrim and spent another hour there waiting for my parents to arrive to take us home. 

          My father was never particularly keen on driving very long distances so as soon as he walked into the police station he handed his car keys over to Fred and told him to drive us all home.  

I couldn’t believe it, there was my father a very cautious driver and a very particular man telling someone who had just had an accident, to drive his car home.  This is the same man who washed his car every week and would have known any little mark that was on it, and he calmly handed over his keys to someone who had just wrecked their own car.  When I asked him about it he just said he trusted Fred to drive us home he said Fred wasn't going to fall asleep again.

I am so thankful that God is just like that.

No matter what silly thing we do he is ready to give us that second chance, provided we are ready to admit we were wrong and look to Him instead of ourselves.

Can you believe that God will be like that with you?

Click Here for Part 1

Click Here for Part 3

Why We Worship 14

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"

We have already looked at the 
omnipresence of God and the omniscience of God 
so today I wanted to consider the 

Omnipotence of God

   This simply means that God is 

All-powerful

 God has all power.  

             No one or no thing has more power than God.

                          He is so powerful He created everything out of nothing.

                                       God has power over everything, all of the people and all of creation.

Not only does verse 5 of Psalm 147 speak of how powerful God is but the whole Psalm is centred around this telling us of His power to 

water the earth v. 8,  send the wind v. 18,  bring peace v. 14,  etc.

Praise the Lord!
For it is good to sing praises to our God;
    for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.
2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
    he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
    and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars;
    he gives to all of them their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
    his understanding is beyond measure.
6 The Lord lifts up the humble;
    he casts the wicked to the ground.

7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
    make melody to our God on the lyre!
8 He covers the heavens with clouds;
    he prepares rain for the earth;
    he makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He gives to the beasts their food,
    and to the young ravens that cry.
10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
    nor his pleasure in the legs of a man,
11 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
    in those who hope in his steadfast love.

12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
    Praise your God, O Zion!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
    he blesses your children within you.
14 He makes peace in your borders;
    he fills you with the finest of the wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
    his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
    he scatters frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
    who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
    he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
    his statutes and rules to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
    they do not know his rules.
Praise the Lord!

So if God is for us who can possibly stand against us

I am thankful that God has all power on Earth and in Heaven, everywhere.