An Eventful Day

March 27

Yesterday was quite an eventful day and it is one that makes us thankful for the Lord's hand of protection around us.

We had been traveling on Interstate 81 North and when we had gotten to just beyond mile post marker 21 in West Virginia, traffic had come to a complete halt. We didn't have any idea what had happened but finally found a local radio station that was carrying the news.

Apparently, we had come within a mile or so and within about two to three minutes of being involved in the accident. The clock in our car indicated that it was 8:49 when we came to a stop and the accident, which we could not see, happened at 8:45. It was between mileposts 21 and 23 according to the reports we heard.

It seems there was a sudden snow squall that blinded everyone. We were that close to it but didn't see any evidence of it at all! One driver plowed into the concrete median and a semi skidded into him and a third car skidded under the semi! The news report said there were twenty cars involved to one degree or another in the pile up. A second accident happened in the south bound lane just beyond the 23 milepost. Reports indicate numerous cars in that pile up, too. The final tally was that 44 cars were impacted to one degree or another by the accident.

We sat in totally stopped traffic from around 8:49 until around Noon when we followed the lead of a number of other cars that turned around and went back south in the north bound lane and got off at the milepost 21 on-ramp that was being used as an-off ramp. We got over to the south side at the next ramp and there were very few cars making their way south...just people like us who had been going north but turned around. The north-bound lane didn’t resume normalcy until 5 P.M.!

We saw more emergency vehicles than we've ever seen before, including five medi-vac helicopters. There were numerous injured people and at least two fatalities. We were struck by the fact that so many dear souls, simply going about their routine, had such a calamity befall them.

We had prayed before we left home, as we always do before a trip, and must thank the Lord for His mercy and grace and keeping power over us on a day when so many lives were impacted so devastatingly. An experience such as this one makes very real the words of II Corinthians 6:2, “Behold, NOW is the accepted time; behold TODAY is the day of salvation.”

No one has a promise of tomorrow. No one knows the moment when he will breathe his final breath. “At an hour when you think not, the Son of Man shall come,” Matthew 24:44. Whether He comes for us individually or whether He comes on that glorious day of His return (see Acts 1:11), we will each keep that final appointment (see Hebrews 9:27.) An eventful day like today makes us so very cognizant of that inescapable truth.

Ephesians 2:8, 9 becomes very real: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Only the grace of God saves us and only the grace of God keeps us. May we ever be thankful; may we not take His grace for granted. It is indeed life’s greatest gift.