Nadine and I had been planning on taking a 3 week road trip to Colorado, followed by Wyoming and then to Lacy, Washington to attend Tyler’s college graduation.  We were anticipating this journey for a long time and June 29th came for the eventful caravan ride.  It was uneventful on the trip to Colorado Springs and then to Denver for a few days at each place to visit family and participate in some consulting with a client.

May 3rd arrived and we had planned to drive from Denver to Grand Junction to visit Nadine’s family for a few days.  We said goodby to her son and family and off we headed on Interstate 70, a drive of 3 hours and 59 minutes to be exact from our travel app.  Little did we know that rain in Denver turns to sleet and then to snow and snow-packed roads. The higher we went the more snow we saw.  Warning signs stating that chains were mandatory were flashing every few miles.  It was becoming slushie on the highway when we entered Eisenhower Tunnel at the top of the mountain.  We thought we were in the clear when something happened.

We exited the 2 mile tunnel only to find total show packed roads coming out of the tunnel and a 6-7% decline coming down the mountain.  Cars and trucks were sliding in every direction in front of us and as I put on the brake, my truck began to skid as well.  We couldn’t stop.  My brakes were to no avail.  We were going to hit the cars and truck in front of us and we had nothing we could do to stop it.  Except for one thing.

On the right side of the semi-truck in front of us was a pile of snow that no one was venturing into.  My only thought was I didn’t want to hit the truck so I guided the wheels to the right of the truck and my truck began to go in that direction.  I was in knee-deep snow but I didn’t hit the truck and the snow brought me to a stop.  I put the truck in 4-wheel-drive and passed the semi on the left and began to head down the mountain at 5 miles per hour.  I looked back in my rear view mirror and saw that the semi I had almost hit was beginning to slide with the back-end moving into a jackknife position.  He had blocked off all cars in back of him.  We finally got down to where the snow was beginning to melt on the freeway and continued on our journey.

How many times do we find ourselves cruising along in life thinking about our destination only to find that a snow storm hits our path and causes us to have to deal with the difficulties that are facing us.  It may be a financial crisis.  A relational crisis.  A vocational crisis.  Whatever it is, we feel helpless in solving the problem as we did when we were sliding in the snow and had no brakes.

Fortunately we realized that the Lord had directed our thoughts to turn to the right and gain control of our truck.  On this journey when we find ourselves being out of control of our circumstances, God is only a prayer away to give us guidance and direction to our circumstances, if only we would call on Him.