Spending the night in the hospital after a car accident that resulted in a concussion is no fun, especially if you're pregnant. The whole time I was in the ER, the nurse checked the baby's heartbeat numerous times. She even put a little heart shaped sticker on my tummy where she found him so she could always go back to that spot. For the most part, he cooperated and was still enough for her to hear him. When the got me in a room, however, he had had enough! The nurse in the L&D unit got so frustrated with the little stinker at one point that she just gave up. He was obviously moving around a lot, because every time she would catch him he would scoot away! So I got hardly any sleep there, between waking me up every few minutes because of the concussion and trying to hear the baby, I was exhausted when we finally got home!
Let me rewind a little bit here. After the men pulled us out of the car, other people rushed to "duty". Our car landed on it's top in the road, right in between the two driveways of the church. People started to direct traffic through the parking lot so the ambulances could actually get to us and the traffic could keep going. Of the many people that helped us that day, three beautiful souls come to my mind. I don't know their names, perhaps I never will. One of the men introduced himself as a nurse (we found out later that he was actually a Corpsman in the Navy), and another young man introduced himself as an EMT. The other was a beautiful blond lady that was pouring water on my hand while she shook like a leaf. She was trying to wash my hand the best she could without hurting me.
Let me just insert here, how wonderful our God is! These people were put there specifically for my husband and me, that day, at that time; no question in my mind! Not just one medical professional, but two! What's even more miraculous was what we were told by the EMT. He was a young man; usually went to church with his Dad somewhere else, but that day, he just felt that he was supposed to come to church with his Mom. Praise God that he was there!
Ok, back to the story. After I took a long nap, I called Bethel Baptist church to thank them for all their help, and to let them know we were banged up, but ok. The woman that answered the phone sounded very excited to hear from me; she had apparently been getting phone calls all day long asking about us. She was so happy to know that we were ok, and that she could tell people that very thing now. She then asked if there was anything they could do for us. I jokingly said, "well, if you know of anyone selling one, we're in the market for a new-to-us car!"Basically, we had just totaled our car.
Tuesday afternoon, the phone rang. We didn't recognize the number, so we let the answering machine pick it up (wow-this was even before voice mail!) We heard someone saying something about the accident, so Shawn quickly went and answered it. After a few minutes, he got that nervous laugh that I know so well. He kept saying "thank you!" and I could hear the excitement in his voice. When he hung up the phone, he rushed into the living room, put his head in my lap and said, "they want to give us a car!" Wait. What? Surely he didn't say that right. Give us a car?
Apparently there was a young couple a little older than us that had just had a second child. They had already bought a bigger vehicle, but had planned on selling their car. Instead, they decided to gift it to us! I really didn't believe it; not at all.
Shawn did all the arranging; I had to make a surprise trip back to the ER that week for a severe headache. The next Sunday, exactly a week after we wrecked, these angels brought a 1996 Mercury Sable to my parent's house. (We lived in Virginia Beach at the time in a, how shall we say it, rough neighborhood. No place to park a car with no tags!) I think I was still a little in shock, to tell you the truth. Why would someone do this for total strangers? But there it was, free. Ours.
Not only did they give us the car, but they knew it needed new tires to pass inspection by the end of that month. So they put $200 cash in an envelope in the glove compartment so we could buy new tires. The car that was wrecked was a 1995 Ford Taurus. If you know anything about cars, then you'll know that a Ford Taurus and a Mercury Sable are practically the same car. We had just put new tires on the Taurus, and they weren't damaged (remember, we landed upside down?). So we were able to harvest the tires from the Taurus and put them on the Sable. Funny thing, though; it was almost exactly $200 to get the car title changed over and registered to us, because it was a gift.
No. Not a funny thing at all. God's hand was at work.
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