God's Protection

Wow, it's been a crazy couple of days.
And I can say with confidence that we are all alive and well because of God's protection.

Story #1
It started Thursday night. We were on our way home from dinner and were stopped at a red light right in front of a park that was having a 4th of July concert. I think it was probably 7:00 p.m. Mark rolled the windows down so we could all hear the music. About 7 seconds go by (being stopped at the light) and all of a sudden we feel a huge jolt and hear a super loud bang..."what in the world just happened?????" We looked around...everybody was okay, Tessa was crying, I was in shock, and Mark was making sure that Tessa and I were alright. Crazy. Someone nailed us from behind without any screeching brakes to warn us that it was coming. In a sense, praise God we didn't know, then our bodies would have stiffened up and that would have made the situation worse. I got out of the car so I could go in back to comfort Tessa and realized that there were probably 50 people who had seen the accident (it wasn't a problem getting a witness!) Anyway, we had volunteer safety people at our sides in no time at all (I'm thinking they were there for the concert). I was told to keep Tessa in her carseat just in case she had whiplash or something. Both Mark and I chose to ignore them so I took her out and she was just fine...happy to be held and comforted. As soon as I pulled her out of the car, she sees all the people on the side of the road looking at us. Immediately she starts waving to everyone, "I'm okay, I'm okay"...it was precious; so comforting to know that she WAS okay.
Praise the Lord nobody got hurt. The guy who hit us felt terrible (I feel bad because my first instinct was to lay into him for hitting us...Mark had to put his hand on my thigh to calm me down), and the people who we hit were fine as well...3 cars involved...sandwich accident. Anyway, praise God that we all walked away from a couple of pretty banged up cars. Granted both Mark and I are feeling pretty stiff and sore, but Tessa is fine and so are we. Praise God for protecting us.

Story #2
We celebrated the 4th of July with the Murrays and Hartleys, we had a great time swimming in the pool, soaking our achy bodies in the hot tub, and catching up with good friends. Tessa did a great job of respecting the pool while she chose to play on the cement instead of swimming (she had had her fair share of the water earlier). Anyway, we put our dry clothes on and went back out for an amazing dinner around the pool. I think you can all guess what happened next...Megan, Tessa, and myself were all hanging out right next to the pool because someone was getting VERY curious. In fact, I was just praising Tessa for doing such a good job of understanding her boundaries with the water. Well, I said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again, I/we have A LOT of learning to do as parents (and Tessa is oh so eager to teach us!)
Anyway, I don't know exactly what she was trying to do, but she went right in the pool...I believe head first??? Praise God that Megan was RIGHT there, she jumped in and grabbed Tessa. Bless you, Megan!!!! Talk about being scared out of my mind...seeing my daughter's eyes wide open under the water in total shock. Megan handed Tessa to me...dripping wet, bawling, and scared out of her mind. And yet, she immediately started waving to everyone, "I'm okay...sniffle, sniffle...I'm okay". Unbelieveable! Praise God for protecting her.

Hopefully there will not be a Story #3...at least not for a while!