And Then I Hit the Other Car

It was a dark and stormy night, and…wait. That’s wrong. It was a bright and sunny day, and completely clear. Carla and I had gotten up early so that we could drive across town so that she could have outpatient surgery to remove her tonsils, which over the years had swollen to the point that they were interfering with her ability to swallow. The procedure went very well, and the surgeon (an ENT) and the recovery nurse explained how things should be handled. I was also told by the ENT that one of the tonsils contained some fluorescent yellow pus and, because of my technical background, I thought that was very cool. Just one more reason to love Carla.

The nurse in the recovery room gave me some prescriptions and told me that one of them was for anesthetic lollipops, which would have to be made at a compounding pharmacy. She told me that there was one nearby that “do a lot of these” and suggested that I drop by and pick them up while Carla was coming out of the anesthesia. When I arrived, the girl behind the counter told me that there was about a 50% chance that my insurance would cover them, and that they would be $90 if not. This was a dilemma, because while I knew that Carla would never want me to spend $90 for six lollipops, I wanted to make sure that she had everything she needed. Getting tonsils removed when you aren’t quite so young anymore is generally very, very painful. This was about three and one-half weeks ago, and she is still recovering. The girl asked me what flavor I wanted, and she gave me three options: cherry, root beer, and one I can’t remember. After I said “cherry” and waited, she said our insurance would cover them and they would cost only $1.85, but that the only way she had gotten the insurance to go through was to remove “marshmallow” as one of the flavor options. Seriously. No, this was not the third choice I was given. Yes, this is ridiculous. Later, when I told Carla, she started logically dissecting why this made no sense, but we must remember that we are talking about the American healthcare system here: Much like our federal government, sense and logic do not necessarily factor into the picture. All this, and it turns out that the anesthetic did more to numb her tongue and cheeks than the painful area formerly occupied by her tonsils. So, we still have five unused and one slightly used anesthetic lollipops. I’m thinking about opening a used-drug dealership—think used cars without the oil changes. Maybe I can sell the almost new one as a certified pre-owned lollipop. Hmmm. On second thought, maybe it’s not such a good idea to become a used-drug dealer.

We arrived home and I made sure that Carla had everything she needed. The next two weeks of eating liquids and apple-sauce-consistency foods were not pleasant for her. I’m not sure which she appreciated more, the flowers I bought for her on two occasions, or the sugar-free Jell-O (one of every flavor that Walmart had) and sweet potatoes. Later on in the afternoon I drove to our local Publix Pharmacy to pick up the rest of her meds. I pulled off Poinsett Highway toward Old Buncombe Road and stopped behind a gray Toyota that had stopped at a yield sign because there was oncoming traffic. I dutifully looked to the left and, after all of the traffic was gone, I accelerated onto Old Buncombe. No, that’s not quite right. I actually accelerated into the gray Toyota Camry. The girl driving it was still waiting at the yield sign. Yes, I had assumed that she was gone. No, I had not turned to look to see if she was gone. I then had an “Oh, no!!!” moment.

The conventional wisdom in such situations is that you never admit you did anything wrong. In this case, though, the accident was completely and unambiguously my fault. I’m an honest man, and I also represent the Creator of the universe, and it’s important to take responsibility for my actions. I went to the other driver, who was huddling behind the steering wheel next to her cute little dark brown dog, apologized, and asked if anybody was hurt. Thankfully, no. As it turned out, I hit Mary’s car very slowly, probably only a few miles per hour. The impact was so light that our 1999 Chevy Venture minivan wasn’t damaged: I had a hard time even finding scratches on it, and I didn’t make an insurance claim on it. The 2007 Camry had some damage to the plastic skirt on the left side of the rear bumper (scratches and a small square spot puckered in). That skirt had also popped away from the area near the left rear wheel; there was about a 1/8” gap in some places between the skirt and the body of the car. They just don’t make cars anymore like they used to way back in 1999. I called 911 and they connected me to the police, who took some information from me and told me to wait.

I proceeded to educate Mary about how things like this are handled. After all, this was her very first accident. I explained that we should both take photos of the damage on both cars, and that we needed to get out our car registrations and insurance cards and exchange information (again, pictures were taken). We also talked about the course of study she’s pursuing at a local community college, and then she saw the BJU parking sticker on the car and asked me if I were a faculty member. She thought it was cool that I am. A little later a nice young man in a hat came—let’s refer to him as The State Trooper—and started asking questions. We gave him the full rundown, including my crystal-clear confession that it was completely my fault, and he offered to let us handle things with just our insurance rather than his giving a ticket to, um, me. I told Mary I was fine with that, but she thought she should talk to her dad on the phone, and in fact that was the prudent thing for her to do. While she was on the phone, I told The State Trooper that if I were her dad, then I’d tell her to get the police report. Her dad did, we did get the report, and I did get the ticket, for “improper start of vehicle.” The State Trooper, however, was as lenient as possible: He assessed zero points and gave me the cheapest fine he could give, which was $75. I went home, contacted the Travelers insurance company, and gave them the complete spiel. They had the issue completely resolved in 16 days. Case closed. No, I don’t yet know how much this will affect our rates.

Besides the personal responsibility, honesty, and representing the Lord properly, there’s another very big issue here: God’s Providence. You can find many different definitions of Providence, but the upshot is that it amounts to God’s working in the world without supernatural intervention to accomplish His purpose. Easton’s Bible Dictionary says that Providence “is generally used to denote God's preserving and governing all things by means of second causes….” Second causes simply refers to natural events and things that people do: these are the normal, non-miraculous kinds of things that we see every day.

Perhaps some people find the notion of Providence rather mundane, but I find it fascinating, and mind-blowing. Throughout the entire history of the world, God has ordered all things so as to bring to pass His purpose in my life, in your life, and in all lives. In the places in the universe where there is no life (which is, as best as we can tell, almost all of them), He still has purpose, and He is still working providentially. This is a deep subject, and many questions arise as soon as we start talking about it. I’ll not raise them here, and even if I did, the answers are neither brief nor easy. Suffice it to say, God accomplishes a huge amount of stuff through Providence. I don’t have a way to measure it, but it seems to me that, for the overwhelming majority of things that He accomplishes, He does so providentially. The people I know, the training I had, the career I’m having, meeting and marrying Carla, having children—all these things were done primarily by way of Providence. Yes, sometimes He intervenes and does things supernaturally, but all of the time—all of the time—He is working providentially, nonstop, 24/7.

And so it was providential that Carla needed to have her tonsils removed, that I hit the other car, that nobody was hurt, that I got a ticket, that the penalty could have been much worse, and that the lollipops were paid for almost entirely by insurance only when “marshmallow” wasn’t included as a possible flavor option. Job recognized that God chooses both the good and the bad:

“Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?”

Job 2:10 (NASB)

This is not some kind of uber apathy where I don’t care what happens one way or the other. I very much do care. No, I don’t understand why God chooses some things. I understand Providence just a little and, in fact, I recently started reading a book about it. It’s written by a theologian, it’s very deep, and I don’t expect to agree with everything the author says. He raises some great questions, and I’m going to find out how he answers them. All this is good and well, but at the end of the day, here’s the biggest question: Will I trust God or not? During good circumstances and bad? By His grace—only by His grace—yes, I will.