Close Encounters

What close encounters have you been in? Did it scare you? Did you start thinking through things more after they happened? I have seen God watch over me in my short 18 years. The first scary thing that happened was totalling my car on 281, three months after I got my license. It sent my little sister to the ER with facial burns and spinal spasms. THAT was easily the scariest day of my life.

One day I was cleaning tables at the Alamo Hights Double Dave's and I was cleaning the table closest to the front wall. I hear a loud crash and scraping noise. I look out and see a car sticking out of the door not 10 feet from where I was standing. An elderly man had gotten the break and gas pedals mixed up and went through the CVS doorway. If he had parked 3 parking spots over he would have gone thru the wall right where I was standing.

Today I am opening the store and setting up at our other location at Blanco and Huebner. I hear a loud whooshing sound. I look out the window and all I can see is flames; the brightest and biggest flames I've ever seen. I had no clue what was going on but yelled for my bosses to come look. I ran to get the keys for the back door and we raced out on the patio. As some people later saw on the news, a construction crew hit a major gas line (a 30 inch pipe) with its tractor and everything burst into flames. My first thought was the poor man that was trapped in the cabin of the tractor. I knew that if he was in there, he was being roasted alive and that horrified me. I started praying that he wasn't in there as I thought of the construction workers that frequent our store and prayed they were all safe. Someone later informed us that they saw him run away before it blew. I breathed a sigh of relief. The flames were far enough away that we were not in trouble but after watching for fifteen minutes the firefighters evacuated everything within a few miles of the pipe. I went home and watched it on the news. All I could think about was how amazing God is that no one was hurt and that it was as controled as it was. The fire fighters said it was a miracle that it went down like it did and it should have been much worse. I know that the crew working directly in front of my store could have done the same thing and who knows what would have happened. The placement was perfect that it wasn't close enough to a store or a house to really hurt anything or anybody. God was watching out for everyone and for his protection I'm thankful. I try not to live in fear but remember that whatever happens, God has it all planned out and He's got it under control.