A Night to Remember
It was a long drive to get to where we were going; a small village at the bottom of a mountain in Maine. We were driving a rented truck with enough supplies to last us at least the week we were renting that cabin. As the truck meandered through the small roads that went through the forest we had trouble with our GPS signal. That made keeping a course difficult. As it happened we took a wrong turn.
We found ourselves in the middle of the forest, with no cell signal, no road maps and a useless GPS, totally lost. My wife suggested that we leave the truck where it was and walk on the road to see if we could find someone to direct us to the right path. Secretly I’m sure she was praying for help.
We hadn’t gotten far, when we heard the crash. Turning back the way we came, we saw the tree that had fallen. It had landed right on top of our truck, smashing through the front windshield. We surely would have both been killed. We were lucky to have left the truck when we did. I’m not sure if it was just coincidental or my wife’s prayer that saved us.
With nowhere else to go, we continued on our walk. This time it was my turn to pray. I prayed for help, not knowing how we could possibly find a way out.
We reached a fork in the path when I saw headlights of a vehicle heading towards us. It was red Outback racing in our direction. Luckily the driver saw us and stopped. Coincidence or prayer? We explained our story and she was kind enough to not only drive us to our truck, unload what we could into her Outback, and then take us to the cabin. She explained that we weren’t the first people to get lost on that road, however we were the first to escape death.
As the time reached midnight, the color of the sky changed, it became less dark blue and more pitch black. Then lightning struck and the rain came. We decided to wait out the storm before continuing to our cabin
When we got there, we unloaded the Outback, thanked the driver, moved everything in, lit a fire in the fireplace and collapsed from emotional exhaustion. Through all the hazards and stress we had on our way there, we were safe. You could say the relief made the rest of our night’s thoughts “happy to be alive”.
