'BUMP... WITHOUT CRUNCH'

I have oh such an amazing story to share once again!

This one is about praying to Jesus, whom I trust in answering prayers that seek His divine intervention. Of how God honours His children and is always faithfully 'Immanuel', "God with us".

A couple of weeks ago, I was praying as usual for protection over my family, and on that day, without thinking anything of it, I prayed specifically for protection over our vehicles.

I don't normally pray for our cars as I am not in the habit of expecting our cars to suffer, heartache, pain, fatigue, or anything that us humans do.

Anyway, my day went on as usual, I went to work, achieved lots, stayed safe, and felt relaxed. Why wouldn't I, after my usual daily prayers of asking God to keep us all safe in the comfortable protection of Jesus' arms.

Arrangements for that day changed with regards the pick up of my daughter, for reasons that I can't recall. We needed to go shopping and I had to park in a parking spot I don't normally park in, because the parking lot was extremely busy. Whilst in the shops, we bumped into my bosses wife, whom my daughter had not yet met. Introductions were made, a little chit chat ensued, goodbyes expressed, and then we commenced in opposite directions with our shopping.

We checked out our shopping, paid the bill, and then walked out and over to the parking lot to my car. Whilst crossing the road, my bosses wife was driving out, she stopped her car for us to pass and I made a comment that we should stop bumping into each other like this. Her reply was, "it's a good thing we are not 'literally' bumping into each other". We laughed and continued once again on our different ways.

It was unusual for me to park my car forward into the bay. I normally reverse, especially after taking a course on defensive driving techniques against possible hijackers. I also find driving forward out of a parking more comfortable in the way of 360 vision.

On my drivers side, there was a huge double cab parked in reverse and the driver was sitting way above me, also waiting on traffic. It was a one way which made getting out the bay that much easier as cars only came from the right or behind.

I put my car into reverse, checked if it was clear and noticed that the car behind me was also reversing, so I went back into drive and moved forward. He did the same. I waited a while and it seemed he was waiting for me so I shifted gears to reverse. I started moving back but noticed that he was again doing the same. I quickly switched back to drive and was moving forward when suddenly I was hit from the left. It was a hard bump with the sound of crunching metal very obvious. My daughter and I felt the jolt and both had instantly huge white areas surrounding the iris of our eyes.

My head fell into my steering wheel, I desperately tried to hold back tears as I immediately thought about the insurance cover I did not have, about my car being unlicensed due to the foreign registration still pending, about the lack of monetary resources to even think about repairing my car.

Then I heard the guy in the double cab next to me shout out, "that man was not even looking, he just reversed straight back into you". Then another guy came running from across the parking lot and still another two different people, all claiming they saw what happened and that he was without doubt in the wrong. Of course the man who bumped me was in total denial, claiming it was all my fault.

I reluctantly got out my vehicle and started to move around to the passenger side to where the damage had been inflicted. The first image I saw was his car, this made me grimace and feel sick inside my stomach. His car was crunched quite badly, an indication of what I was not looking forward to with the inevitable damage on mine.

I walked slowly around, wishing someone would wake me from this nightmare, I walked and looked and kept walking and looking, dreading what my eyes were about to reveal. As I peered around, I could not believe what I was seeing, no damage at all, no crunched metal, nothing except a mark only just visible to the naked eye.

Unbelievable, a huge 'bump... without crunch'!

Now I really wanted to cry but this time for joy. I immediately praised God, thanking him profusely for Immanuel, 'God with us'.

I learnt from this experience that God sometimes gives us reason to pray specifically, just so He can show off His amazing love of us. He needs us to keep the faith and trust in what we ask, for He will honour and bless us for as long as we seek and live by His will.

Isaiah 8:8-15 (NKJV)
He will pass through Judah,
He will overflow and pass over,
He will reach up to the neck;
And the stretching out of his wings
Will fill the breadth of Your land,
O Immanuel