I haven’t written for over two months… for good reason.

Weather forecasters can give us weather updates daily and alert us when potential storms are coming in. Not so with real life storms that hit us without warning.

One of my sisters has had some serious health issues over the past several years. She has had good days. But within one 24-hour period, several weeks ago, her vitals dropped dramatically, and she was gone to heaven. In the blink of an eye, she was gone.

I could not see her. We were trying hard to work our schedules together but fell short of making it happen. I remember weeping intensly. Out of the five siblings, we had always been the closest. I was told years ago that she raised me for the first five years of my life. My mother lived in a black hole in clinical depression and suicidal attempts. I do not remember this sister being with me much at home. She was nine years older and left home when she was fifteen. I vaguely remember her occasional visits. I must have loved her deeply as a small child, because I remember weeping lavishly and clinging to her when her visits ended.

After high school graduation, I hastened to the big city to be near her. We felt blessed with ten years of close communion, having long talks, and sharing laughs and serious conversations. I not only had time with her, but with her precious girls as well. I watched the girls at home frequently.

After I was married, our conversations came through phone calls and emails. We could have only a few brief, in-person visits.

Now, there will be no more conversations on this side of heaven.

My son and I traveled 800 miles to attend her funeral. We spent a couple of days with the family and then loaded up the car for our trip home. Only thirty minutes into our trip, on a five-lane highway in morning-busy traffic, a driver lost control of their car and smashed into us.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the car coming across the highway sideways. Something or SOMEONE urged me to turn a little left. The sound of crunching metal made me realize the driver had hit us. That, and the scream of my son in the back seat. I thought it was only a second, but it must have been a few minutes when the officer came to my side window. I immediately looked in the back seat to see my special needs son, gratefully, sitting upright, and not crying. A quick view of us both comforted me we had no broken bones or lacerations. Adrenaline and mother mode kicked in and the officers and I quickly planned how to get my autistic son from our totaled car into a police car, on the busy highway, without him going into shock or him screaming and running into the traffic.

Many thought it was a horrible thing for God to allow us to be involved in this accident just briefly after we had said goodbye to my sister. But God was taking care of us!

Miraculously, we walked from a totaled car with no broken bones or lacerations!

If I hadn’t slowed down and given a slight turn to the left towards the medium, the car could have hit my side or could have hit the back side where my son sat. God also gave me the strength to drive the 800 miles home while feeling effects of the accident, because I knew if my son needed medical care, his doctors at home would be best.

Now, four weeks after the accident, my son has recovered from the bangs and bruises he experienced. I am still seeing a concussion therapist and physical therapist weekly.

My son and I have experienced many losses, disappointments, health issues, and frustrations over the past three years since returning to the U.S. Most would see the accident as one trial too many. But I look at things differently because of God’s faithfulness over my lifetime.

So, what do you do when you are a single mom, with a special needs son living in a new area with no child care, and experiencing daily severe pain, while also helping your son recover from injuries and trauma? What do you do when the car that was totaled was so old that you knew the money wouldn’t replace it, and you had no means to buy another car? You pray, and you trust a faithful Father who has met your needs without fail. Granted, there are many things that we have been without, and many times we have struggled, but God has never abandoned us.

And God did just what I believed He would do…

Go back with me to the week after my sister died.

I was desperately looking for someone to care for our two-year-old ESA lab. She had been with us since she was four months old and never boarded. I checked out a few kennels, but knowing her attachment to my son, I imagined she would be miserable in a kennel. I received a referral concerning a couple that boarded dogs at their home. Even though I didn’t know them, I checked a reference, prayed, and dropped her off on our way out of state. I didn’t have any choice.

The care given to our lab while we were gone was the greatest. I even received photos of how happy she was. The pet sitter and I had connected because we had similar things in common, like adoption and special needs children.

A couple of days later, when we returned home in our rental car, the wife texted me and said that she and her husband had decided on donating their older minivan to us. Only God could have orchestrated us meeting them!

The more I have had significant losses or trials, the clearer I have seen God’s hand in my life. Many people, at the beginning of each new year, ask God to give them one word to meditate on and live by for the year. I felt God gave me two words and have meditated on them both:

Boldly – confidently and courageously show a willingness to take risks.

Prevailed – Be victorious!

A friend recently shared that she had prayed that God would give her courage to stay the course. We all need to pray that prayer hourly! In a Bible verse she shined light on a word I hadn’t noticed before.

“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51/NIV). In another version it says: He was determined. Don’t you want to be determined about who you are in Christ in your character, your actions, and your ideas and beliefs? I do!

Recently, we had a tornado warning in our area. My son was at school and had to join his classmates in a shelter. In danger, we run for safety. In the same way, when we are experiencing a life storm, we want to run and hide. It is easy to put on a headset, turn on our computers, and browse through social media, or imagine ourselves in scenes of a movie, trying to not think of what is happening in our lives.

I have seen more of God’s hand at work in my life in the heartbreaking death of my sister and more of His provision and loving care in the accident and what has followed. Yes, I miss my sister, but I WILL see her again. Yes, I am in pain, and yes, I cannot work right now. This, too, shall pass. But what I have experienced in seeing God through all of this has brought me joy-even in the storm.

“Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea—
 the Lord on high is mighty”(Psalm 93:4/NIV).Stronger than the waves that you feel are crashing down upon you. The LORD is mightier, and He will never leave you or forsake you.

I believe the Lord allows trials to pile up on us so that we can grieve and empty ourselves so He can fill us with Himself.

Marshall Segal, of Desiring God, said this, “Do the promises that Christ will come again ever feel sweeter than when life on earth feels harsh and unyielding?”

Amen! Come, Lord Jesus, come!