There But for the Grace of God, Go I

I had a scary experience this afternoon.  I was zipping down the freeway, on my way from work to pick my daughter up from school, and out of the blue I hear a whooshing sound that I at first mistook for a low flying airplane.  Everything happened in a few ticking seconds, but I looked left and saw the car in the lane next to me make a side impact with a truck in the far left lane and then ricochet back towards my lane like a pinball.

With a crunch and a screech, that car whipped into a 360 degree spin -- around once, twice, hurtling towards me.  My heart was beating out of my chest and I reacted solely on adrenaline and instinct.  Thankfully, I stepped on the accelerator and not the brake, pushing it to the floor and pulled ahead out of harm's way at 100 miles an hour just in the nick of time.  Now looking in my rear view mirror, I see the spinning car come to a stop, stretched horizontally across the lanes of 70 mile an hour traffic and several more cars slamming into it.  I don't know if that driver survived.  It took me the rest of the drive to my daughter's school to calm my heart.

With my 1st grade daughter safely in the car and now on the way to pick up daughter number two from preschool, I recount what had just happened, still in a haze of shock.  My daughter's comment (in a voice full of concern) was:  "I'm so glad you didn't die, Mom!  I would have been waiting in the school office for a long time!"  Despite how that sounds, I actually do think she would have missed me.

This experience left me thinking about grace.  Some might call it luck, but I prefer grace.  I look for grace in my life and find it over and over again.  In fact, I named my oldest daughter "Hannah," which means "grace" (she was born on Thanksgiving Day, and it seemed appropriate for so many reasons, not the least of which was the gratitude I felt at delivering a healthy baby after a string of miscarriages).

(I know it's not Wednesday, but I can't help myself.)  Grace comes from an indo-eurpoean root meaning "to praise (aloud)."  Grace comes from the Latin gratus, meaning pleasing, beloved, agreeable, favorable, thankful.  This word pleases me, because it reflects both the love of God for each of us, and our praise and gratitude for that love.  We live by grace and should be giving it on a daily basis.

Tonight, with my own Hannah-grace asleep here on the couch beside me as I type, I am full of grace for the grace that blesses my life -- on the dramatic days like this one, and the seemingly uneventful days alike.  

*By the way, the phrase "There but for the grace of God go I" is attributed to the English evangelical preacher and martyr, John Bradford, who is reported to have made the similar statement "There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford," as he watched men go to the scaffolding for hanging.  Grace only protected him for so long, though.  He was eventually burned at the stake in 1555.