Never Forget...

I will never forget that night from the summer of 1997. It was dark. I was lost somewhere in Washington. It was 2:00 in the morning and I had ventured too far north. When the city lights began to dim in my rear view mirror I realized I should have turned back but was too scared to so I continued on for another hour. No more sign of big cities ahead, I knew I was lost. Besides the signs started to look foreign to me. Where was Vancouver anyway? I didn't dare get off the road so I kept driving until I felt the courage to somehow figure out how to go the other way. Washington freeways aren't like freeways in Utah. The signs were different colors. There were names for streets instead of numbers. I was lost and I was scared.

Let me back up a ways. I had decided a few days prior that I would venture out and visit my sister who lived in Seattle. I took my two boys who were only 8 and 6 at the time. Oh, and our cat. I went seeking normalcy of life that existed on the other side of druggies. I went to seek the memory of myself and who I was, where I came from. I knew being around my sister would accomplish this. I knew I was still somewhere in this drug abused body and mentally neglected mind and I was on a mission to find it.

My husband at the time didn't understand it. He was probably paranoid like the rest of the people who came in and out of that house. Why didn't he get it? Why didn't he want to go with us? Why didn't he see that he was slowly losing his soul to the devil himself and desire to escape from it all? I guess I have been truly blessed to have Christ in me, especially at that time when I need Him to save me most. I didn't care about the speculations. My life and my kids' lives depended on this trip.

So I headed out about 6 am. The drive is about 16 hours and I wanted to go the whole way through. Besides I wasn't used to sleeping anyway thanks to the meth that was all around me. Funny that I didn't pray before I left, yet I felt God's spirit leading me the whole time. Now I realize this, but didn't know I would really need him until that night.

After seeing that the Vancouver sign was revealing it was getting closer and closer, I finally got brave enough to get off an exit in 'I don't know where.' I was tired and worried that those cars around me knew my sin and how dirty I was. I thought of my glass pipe tucked away in my trunk. It had no drugs in it, but I had it for whatever stupid reason. It was some sort of weakness a person who does drugs has - to have their paraphernalia accompany them where they go. They knew it was in there. I found an empty parking lot and decided it was too late to leave the kids in the car to access a payphone to call my sister. I was paranoid that people would look at me too even though no one was out that late at night.

So I found a spot to turn around to get back to what looked like an intersection that would lead me back to the freeway. I made a u-turn in an intersection and my heart raced to see that a cop was there right behind me. It seemed as he hurriedly came upon prowling on me. Knowing that he'd have nothing better to do than to pull me over, I said a prayer. I didn't even think that he could help me. Instead it was my drug used mind that told me he was after me. I prayed to God as I looked in the rearview mirror, then to the back seat at my boys. I prayed into the black sky that was so different from the one I knew at home, "Please help me God. Please help me to get where I need to go. My children should not have to be sleeping in a car at this time of night with a mother who is lost and does not know where to go. They don't deserve this. They wouldn't be here right now if their mother hadn't gotten messed up in this in the first place." I wept. Almost instantaneous as I had finished my prayer, the cop car turned and made a right on the street next to us as if he got another call. This all happened in a matter of a traffic light's time yet it happened for an eternity.

I started on the path back and was feeling better. I totally forgot that I had even said that prayer and told myself that the cop must have just realized that I was from out of town given that my license plate was not from Washington. I was still blind you could say. It was amazing to me though that as I drove and landed right at my sisters house without one instance of getting lost. It was as if he had led me there by His hand. It was not my doing at all. I was so very tired, not just from driving for that many hours, but from the drugs that had overtaken my emotions, spirit, heart, and mind the last year. It was an awesome feeling then that I had doe it. But now I realize it was truly God's power, none of my own. I realize today how it was all God's glory and grace that was bestowed upon me that night. I was in His care all along. I will never forget.