The route we took is the same one I take five or six days a week, so it is more than familiar to me. And, there is one intersection in particular that is a bit odd, and so I normally approach it with a little extra caution.
For some reason, despite a clear dotted line on the road, drivers occasionally get confused -- thinking they can enter the middle lane on Denton Tap from the right of two left turn lanes coming off the 121 frontage road. (See the picture to the right). So, when I turn properly into the middle lane from the left turn lane I always watch for confused interlopers.
On this particular Saturday my mind was definitely elsewhere, but nevertheless I fortunately noticed the dark SUV that wrongly, and illegally, encroached into my lane as I turned left. The cars never actually came all that close to colliding, but even so the lady in the SUV was furious. She began honking her horn at us and yelling words I can only imagine.
In a way it was almost comical at the time -- to see someone so angry and also so completely unaware that she was the one in the wrong. How could she be so angry about such a trivial matter? I mean, no harm was done to either vehicle -- they never even touched. What in her life could have caused such an overblown reaction?
And then I wondered -- Pam and I both wondered -- how that lady might have felt about the way she was acting if she had known that we were driving home from our son's memorial service. How might she have acted if she had known we were just trying to make it through the worst week of our lives? She was angry because she thought I had violated her space on the road. Our entire world had been destroyed. She was worried about her rights. We were worried about surviving the worst disaster any parent can imagine.
On this one occasion, at least, Pam and I were on the receiving end of insensitivity -- indeed an insensitivity beyond anything this woman at the time could possibly have imagined. At the end of the day, though, she didn't need to know what was going on in our lives in that moment in order to do the right thing. She only needed to know that her duty -- if she was a follower of Christ -- was to love us -- to be patient and to show us kindness. I suppose there is a lesson in this for all of us.
1 comment:
Yes, I have been thinking about you, Pam, and your family this week. Some anniversaries are difficult to go through. But I know you enough to know, you will get through it, another year, as I and my family have gone through a similar anniversary. Reading the Book of John this week, and the story of Jesus's friend Lazarus, and how Jesus wept. The man, Jesus, even though He new Lazarus had died and that He was there to raise him from the dead, He became that human, Jesus, who cried and wept with Mary and Martha. He was familiar with that mournful searing pain of personal loss like too many of us go through. And then, we encounter Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who holds us and comforts us and never lets go of us as we dreadfully go through the loss of a dearly loved one. I'm so glad to have Jesus, my Saviour, my friend, in my life. It's a LOVE like no other. A feeling like no other. A presence in my heart like no other...... Thank you, Jesus....
Post a Comment