swerve

As far as my memory can remind me, I have never been one to lose touch with my faith in God, not even when family, academic or personal plights seem too unbearable if others were in my shoes. Optimism always reigned in my system, until that fateful twilight when a car accident almost cost my life, to think that right before the mishap occurred, I just came out of a mass celebration.
It was one of those occasions when the whole family went out to hear mass, so all of us trickled out of the house of God nourished with His good news and with our respective faiths renewed. Repairing to the lot where our van was parked, I sat next to the driver’s seat while the rest of the family planted themselves behind my elder brother and me. As our vehicle approached a blind intersection, a speeding car abruptly loomed into view and it was too late for my brother to swerve to safety. A loud thud accompanied the car crashing against the van’s front, and I was jerked out of my seat and against the glass in front. Apart from the headache and swollen temple resulting from the collision, nothing proved too critical to merit medical attention, thankfully. We still proceeded home where my mother frantically treated my bumped head with an ice pack.
The moment the accident happened, time seemed to have stood still, for I vividly remember having felt mixed emotions right after the two vehicles smacked against each other. I felt enraged that a car should be so careless as to run along a blind intersection at a mad pace—it takes another screeching car opposite its direction to generate a freak accident complete with casualties. I also felt fright because any closer and I and my family would have looked death in the face and blinked fatally. Ultimately, I felt sad that the mishap should happen just when my family basked under God’s celebration of blessings. These negative emotions led me to grow dubious about my faith in God—why should it happen to His devoted daughter, whereas I was about to carry on His instruction of spreading the Gospel and of being blessed to others? I thought that I deserved better than experiencing such an ugly happening. I even thought that more people deserved that, from the erring driver of the other vehicle to other desperadoes whose lives may vanish from this earth and no one would even notice or care. Not my life, I pondered, not this life that’s worthy of living.
It must have been the dizziness I soon recovered from which brutalized me with such cruel thoughts, for when my mental processes turned sober, I had to apologize to God repeatedly for what I believe was an infidel’s phase. It was rather late for me to realize that the event could have been part of the divine plan of testing how fortified my faith has grown. I got reminded of the lay ministers whose weight of temptation on their shoulders practically whitened their hairs, and of other pious individuals whose life trials are more complicated than my own tribulations. It came to me that the accident right after the mass could be a way for me to practice what was preached at God’s house—to spread love, even to those who could have killed me, directly or indirectly. More importantly, it was my duty not to question God’s designs, for it hit me that the accident did not take my life in order for me to relish another chance at living, another opportunity to share my blessings to my family and to others long before I will not be able to because God’s gift of life has given up on me.