crash

I was in an accident yesterday. No, let me rephrase that. I caused an accident yesterday. I rear-ended a guy (well, his car, actually) at a red light. There was no excuse. I hesitate to even write the details here because then everyone will know how careless I can be, but hiding the truth would be refusing the opportunity to be humble, so here we go. The light was red. I was stopped. And for some inexplicable reason, my brain registered that the light had turned green and I started to go. Right into the back end of a green car. Everything in my car went flying forward onto the floor. A man in his sixties hopped out of the victimised car with an unhappy expression on his face. I apologised profusely in French, gave him my name and phone number, and we both went on our way. Thankfully, no one was hurt, the cars seemed to come out of it without even a scratch, and all that was damaged was my self-esteem and the desire to drive anywhere for the next year.

I continued on to the grocery store to pick up a few things and after the initial, rational, deal-with-the-situation-in-a-calm-manner reaction wore off, I started to cry among the discount hair products. I wanted to call Dean, but hesitated because I knew he was having a really busy and stressful day and I did not want to add to his stress. At that moment my phone rang - it was Dean. Yeah! After a teary confession of my utter stupidity, my husband laughed heartily and assured me that everything was good, no one was hurt, not to worry. I love Dean. He has the best reactions.

I got home safely, had a cup of tea, and decided to do something to make myself feel more capable and useful. We had been wanting to move our modem downstairs in order to facilitate getting Xbox Live, so I started to unplug computer stuff, move phones, scrounge up some extra cables, and shimmy furniture around a bit to accommodate the change. After running a phone line along the floor, I straightened up and cracked my head on the corner of the electrical panel box. I grabbed my head, not sure if blood was imminent, and curled up in a fetal position on the floor, sobbing in pain and asking God if this day could get any worse.

Some days we just don't get things right. Our perception is off, we unintentionally hurt other people, we misjudge situations, we break things and injure ourselves and overall end up with disappointing and messy results. I hate those kinds of days. I repented to God, I apologised to the man in the green car, I confessed to Dean, and then I sought to extend grace to myself. Hard stuff, that last bit. And after I allowed grace to pull me out of the selfish pit of self-pity that I had dug for myself, I asked God what he was saying to me in all of this.

Don't move forward before it is time. Wait for my signal. Your impatience can hurt yourself and others.

This is a photo of a busy street in New York City that I took on my visit a year ago.