ERASERS
Picture this – you are on a cloverleaf exit and entrance ramp from one expressway to another. Before exiting you notice a semi-truck being driven erratically. After safely maneuvering the exit ramp, you see the semi-truck exit one vehicle behind you. As you crest the cloverleaf ramp to enter the next expressway, a funeral escort car has stopped the traffic of your lane for a long AND unseen funeral processional – unnecessary because the lane where it was traveling did not end. You stop abruptly and as is your practice, you look in your rear-view mirror to see if the traffic behind you is doing the same. What you see is the driver directly behind you stopping but the semi-truck is bearing down on the car and thus on you. The semi, unable to stop within the short distance, swerves to the right as you and the driver behind you move swiftly as far left as possible. The soundtrack to the slow-motion event is composed of the mighty semi’s engine, the high pitch of the brakes being applied, and skid marks being painted on the asphalt. Catastrophe was denied.
My current everyday routine requires me to travel this same route. This incident happened on the first day of this routine and I am now on day fourteen. The skid marks left by the semi’s tires grab my attention momentarily and my heart skips a beat every day. Skid marks can remind us of danger long after the danger is gone. Every morning the sight of the marks remind me of tragedy averted and send me to a place of gratitude for what could have happened but didn’t.
Gratitude is not the destination for all my life’s skid marks. I am willing to wager that I am not the exception but more the rule.
I have skid marks that remind me of being hurt deeply. You may have the skid marks of repeated rejection or major disappointment. It may be hard to identify a point of gratitude. As I write these words, I am forced to ask myself, “What if the action at the time saved me from a greater catastrophe?” Gratitude and forgiving the action or the person are good erasers of the skid marks. I fully expect to come to the skid mark on the ramp one day and it will have disappeared, or I simply will not notice it. Skid marks do not disappear immediately.
Beyond the incident, I had two choices. I could move on with a grateful heart or I could let the incident paralyze me. I chose the grateful route over being resentful toward “a less than intelligent escort driver and a distracted truck driver,” or paralyzed by fear. I am better for having done so.
PONDER THIS THOUGHT— Don’t ignore the skid marks of life. Let them be the springboard for a better you.
