Just what I needed to hear

One of the reasons I could laugh about my little car accident so quickly -- aside from the fact it was completely my fault for being such a ridiculous fan that I forgot to drive my car -- is because it was so minor. Considering we were traveling at least 55 mph, it definitely could have been much, much worse.

The truth is, I had had this feeling that something bad was going to happen. I don't know what it was that brought it on, but it had been there in the back of my mind for a little while.

The very day before the car wreck, a coworker sent me a link to a site with a ticker for all these different statistics. It showed the number of births and deaths all over the world. It had a ticker for people diagnosed with HIV, people involved in car accidents, and deaths from serious illnesses, suicide, war ... I reset the counter, and the numbers instantly started over from that moment. It was crazy how fast some of them grew. It felt like I could jinx myself just by watching some of those numbers climb.

I quickly closed out of the site before the ticker reached 1 for deaths due to war. I didn't want to know how often that ticker updated.

That something's-going-to-happen feeling had been in the back of my mind since before I saw the ticker. Seeing that site, though, just seemed to reinforce the feeling. Which is a huge reason that little fender bender was almost a relief. I told myself that the wreck had filled the bad-thing quota/"premonition," so everything else will be OK. It worked for the most part, but things are obviously going to be stressful no matter what as long as K is deployed.

Then, last week was pretty rough at work. We had a big company meeti.ng announcing that almost 20% of em.ployees would be la!d off. It would all be done by the end of the week. (Try concentrating after news like that!)

I began thinking about what I'd do if I were in that almost 20%. It might be hard to find a job at first, so I could take whatever job I could find until I found another "real" job. I realized that as long as I had K, everything would be OK.

Luckily, I found out fairly early that my job was safe. But the realization that I can get through anything as long as I have K made me a little uneasy, given where he is right now.

This morning at church, the sermon touched on the economy and all the problems people are having with their jobs, including layoffs. I couldn't believe how perfect the timing was with everything we'd gone through at work last week.

In his sermon, the pastor pointed us to a few Bible verses that can help us in times like these. As he spoke, I thought about the verses, K and the events of the previous week.

But the final words of the pastor's sermon grabbed my full attention:

"It is never naive to trust in God's plan."

I was shocked at how comforting those words were.