{"id":1049,"date":"2012-10-04T19:58:23","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T23:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2012-10-04T19:58:23","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T23:58:23","slug":"prayer-for-defining-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2012\/10\/04\/prayer-for-defining-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer for Defining Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I passed an accident scene yesterday on my way home that really got to me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t normally slow down for accident scenes, I don\u2019t consider myself a rubbernecker (mostly because it annoys the hell out of me) but this scene was odd.\u00a0 It was a small car, looked very new, with the entire front end smashed in.\u00a0 The driver seemed to be trying to back up but this car wasn\u2019t going anywhere.\u00a0 There was no other damaged car to be seen. There was no tree or wall and nothing had fallen from the sky.\u00a0 There was, however, someone in a Jeep protecting the car from being hit again as it was in a precarious spot.<\/p>\n

But the driver was screaming, screaming from her soul. \u00a0It was that type of gut wrenching scream that didn\u2019t denote injury; but rather a desperate plea to something bigger than all of us. \u00a0What you might expect from someone who\u2019d had horrific news or lost a child.\u00a0 It was animal like and stayed with me all night. \u00a0You knew by the sound that the woman\u2019s life was changed in that moment.<\/p>\n

I witnessed something like that a few years ago.\u00a0 Same kind of you-know-that-person\u2019s-life-just-changed moment.\u00a0 I was at a light on my way to work and heard that God awful sound of metal buckling.\u00a0 There is nothing like that sound and for a moment I thought it was me the sound was so close.\u00a0 The car next to me had been hit from behind.\u00a0 It was an older model Honda hit by a much bigger Mercedes.\u00a0 The woman inside the Honda just deflated before my eyes.\u00a0 We made eye contact for the briefest moment and I could see that she was physically ok but she knew her life had just changed in that moment.<\/p>\n

I could pretend to know the story behind each of these incidents, elaborate on their circumstances.\u00a0 But honestly how could I, or anyone for that matter, ever know for sure what each of these women was up against.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t mean I could get either of them out of my head.\u00a0 I wonder about things like this all the time.\u00a0 I wonder what will happen to people and how they will cope with their defining moments.<\/p>\n

It can always go either way.\u00a0 You can look at these kinds of things as great misfortune or you can look for the silver lining.\u00a0 Ok not at that very moment but many times the most wonderful things come out of what seems like the darkest of situations.\u00a0 My friend Sandra is a perfect example of a happy ending from a misadventure.<\/p>\n

Either way my prayer for these women and anyone else I see up against a defining moment:<\/p>\n

Dear God please give this person whatever they need.\u00a0 Don\u2019t listen to what they want because you know (like you know) much better than them.\u00a0 Please give it to them quickly and help them see the lesson in this moment so that they can define their lives with love not hate and resentment. Amen.<\/p>\n

There I prayed for them again.\u00a0 I feel much better now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I passed an accident scene yesterday on my way home that really got to me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t normally slow down for accident scenes, I don\u2019t consider myself a rubbernecker (mostly because it annoys the hell out of me) but this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pause-points"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-gV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}