Staring at the Supra perched on the narrow embankment, I marvel our son has walked away from another automobile accident unscathed this week. “Your kid is really lucky. I can’t believe that ditch didn’t flip that car.” The tow truck driver pulls out his chains to hoist the Supra off the ledge onto his flatbed. It’s dark and cold and drizzling rain. Scott stands in his T-shirt, head bent against the weather. It’s been nearly two hours since he flew out of bed when the call came from Luke. A daddy rushing out without a coat to rescue his son.

When we return home with the wrecked Supra nearing midnight, I tell Luke I’m not mad. “How can I be mad at you when I’m so happy you’re alive?”

All my prayers earlier now make sense. I’d gone to bed with Luke on my mind. As I do every night, I knelt beside our bed and prayed that God would keep our children safe. But after climbing into bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about Luke, my distress growing. I had a bad feeling. So I began praying fervently for his safety as rain pounded the roof.

This blessed rain~ the rain I’d begged our Lord for to ease the drought, but Luke was at youth group, and I knew he’d be driving home in the storm. The first real rain after a long, dry spell. Our back country road would be slick with oil and water.

“Please, Lord, keep Luke safe. I can’t keep him safe, but You can.”

And then the phone call no parent wants. And the crushed look on Luke’s face when Scott brings him home. And the hour with the tow truck in the rain.

And I keep hearing this whisper ~ Be still ~

Be still instead of calling my dad to tell him Luke has wrecked the Supra… again.

Be still instead of beating Luke down with my disappointment.

Be still instead of trying to fix this whole thing for Luke.

Luke is alive and unhurt and I’m learning– oh how I’m learning– to lean hard on prayer. And to lean hard on my Lord. And “To be still and know that he is God” Psalm 46:10.

Because sometimes kids crash. And sometimes kids cry.

Lacy, our 20 year old college student, had a rough week, too. Tears and prayers each day over the phone. Wishing I could fix what I can’t fix for her. What I can’t fix for Luke. If only I could put Luke and Lacy in their car seats like I used to and bring my babies home. We could all watch Little Mermaid and eat fishy crackers and drink milk out of sippy cups…

But kids grow up and people grow old.

After looking over the Supra dumped in our driveway with a broken axle and mangled back tire, my dad walks into the house and sits down by the fire. “The Supra’s totalled. We all make choices and these choices affect our lives. Luke won’t have a car…” Dad begins.

“Luke is grounded,” I interrupt, feeling like a 16 year old myself. Eager to make peace with my dad. “I’m so sorry he wrecked the Supra.”

“I’m not worried about the Supra,” Dad says, and the conversation spins out all tangled with love and mercy and grace that utterly surprises me.

When I was 18, I blew the engine out of Dad’s new Chevy truck. He’d asked me to drive the Chevy to town for him. So I drove the shiny brown pickup until it blew up on the freeway, seizing like I’d hit the emergency brake going 60 miles an hour. The Chevy spun in circles, and finally came to rest on the shoulder with me shocked behind the wheel.

A friend picked me up and drove me to my dad’s engineering firm.

“Where’s my truck?” Dad asked gruffly when I got there.

“I don’t know what happened. It’s on the side of the road…” My legs wobbled with fear as I followed my dad to his jeep and we drove back to the Chevy, Dad’s jaw clenched tight in anger.

We pulled up to his pickup, and he began nosing around. Dad can fix anything, and it only took him seconds to discover the problem. “What did my truck sound like when you were driving it to town?” This question is loaded with rage, like a cannon about to explode.

“It sounded loud…” I admitted. “I checked the emergency brake. It wasn’t on.” I’d already driven the Chevy with the emergency brake on, doing some damage a few months prior.

“It must have sounded like a *&%#@ freight train!” My dad exploded. “It’s in 4-wheel drive low you @#$% twit!”

“Daddy, I could have died…”

“You should have died! You %&*# idiot!”

Back in 1986, that was a bad week for our family. My older brother had left Dad’s Chevy in 4 wheel drive the night before I drove it. I was too young and dumb to know. My mom was home dying her hair red the day I blew the engine in the Chevy. After using the wrong dye, Mom stepped into my dad’s office with purple hair about the time we arrived there. My dad took one look at Mom with her purple hair and slammed his office door in her face.

Now twenty-eight-years later, to my surprise, Dad doesn’t raise his voice over Luke wrecking the Supra a second time. And he doesn’t yell at me, either. When he gets up to leave my house, he limps to the door. He’s been driving the tractor, readying fields for planting, and the tractor really bothers his hip. “Are you okay, Dad?” I ask.

“I’m getting old,” he says, smiling at me. He turns seventy-two this weekend. Luke’s first wreck was on Scott’s birthday. This second accident has fallen the week of Dad’s birthday.

“Thank you for being kind to Luke over this accident.” And thank you for being kind to me, but I don’t say that. I’ve always adored my daddy, but his love hasn’t come easy. Sometimes it hasn’t come at all.

“More rain is coming,” Dad says as I walk him out to his white Chevy pickup.

“I’ve prayed so hard for this rain,” I say, looking up at the cloudy sky.

Without the rain, Luke probably wouldn’t have wrecked Wednesday night. But perhaps next week, or next month, or next year a worse wreck might have happened with Luke driving the Supra.

The “what ifs” sometimes get me.

What if Luke gets in another accident…

Be still and know that I am God. 

When I wrecked Dad’s Chevy pickup, I didn’t know Jesus. And my family didn’t know Jesus. And there was only anger instead of grace all those years ago.

Today there is grace.

Grace for a sixteen-year-old boy learning to drive his Opa’s old Supra.

Grace for a forty-six-year-old woman learning to trust God with all her heart.

And grace for a seventy-two-year-old man learning to love his family more gently.

And all of this is slippery

as the back roads run with rain.