Completely His Loving Jesus Without Limits

Chapter 1: My "Burning Bush" Experience My junior year of high school was off to a great start. By the third day, I had finally memorized my class schedule, my locker combination, and most of my pep-squad routines. I can still remember getting ready the morning of August 29, 1984, slipping on my new jeans and jelly sandals, grabbing my books and pompoms, and kissing my mom good-bye. It was a ten-mile drive to school from our house in the country. As I got into my little brown Plymouth Champ, I grabbed my seat belt, realizing,I never remember to wear this thing, but I may as well put it on nowthat I'm thinking about it.I drove down our oil-topped road and onto the highway that would take me to the interstate. However, I never made it to the interstate that particular morning. As I came over a hill, I remembered that I still needed to put lipstick on. I adjusted my rearview mirror for a quick application. As my eyes returned to the road, I caught a glimpse of something moving, then felt my car jolt suddenly. In a split second it occurred to me that I had hit something. My initial thought was perhaps it was a cow or other farm animal out of its pasture, but I had a sinking feeling that it was something much worse. As I unlatched my seat belt, flung open the car door, and ran back several yards to see what I had hit, my sinking feeling was confirmed. I stood trembling in shock over the body of a curly-headed woman lying face down in the grass next to a mangled bicycle. I wanted to turn her over to see if I could help her, but I knew I couldn't waste precious time in calling for an ambulance. There were only two houses in sight, so I ran to the closer one as fast as my jellies would take me. Pounding on the door, I pleaded for someone to open it. When there was no response, I ran to my car and drove back the other direction, passing the scene of the accident en route to the other house. I was relieved when an elderly man opened the door and quickly moved aside to allow me use of the phone. I called 911 for an ambulance, then called home and asked my mom to drive down the road until she saw me. I couldn't bring myself to tell her anything else. By the time I got back to the scene, another car had stopped, and a gentleman was standing on the side of the road, near the woman. He looked at my car and asked, "Did you hit her?" I responded through my tears of panic, "Yes sir, but it wasn't a hit-and-run. I only left to go call an ambulance." My mother arrived within a couple of minutes, and I tried to pull myself together as she ran toward me with her own tears of panic. As we waited for help to arrive, all I could think about was that the woman I had just hit was probably someone's mother...someone's daughter...someone's wife. How would I ever face her family after what I had done? WAITING IN VAIN It took forty-five minutes for the ambulance to arrive. When a paramedic finally examined the woman, he coldly explained that we would have to call a funeral home because there was nothing he could do. He said it appeared as if she'd been killed on impact, which made me feel as if the past forty-five minutes of hoping and praying had been in vain. Minutes later, the justice of the peace arrived and pronounced the woman dead. I left the scene not even knowing who she was. The next two hours were a blur. I remember collapsing on the living-room sofa, sobbing, then waking up later when a policeman knocked on the door, asking to question me. I kept thinking,This wreck was all my fault. I should have been the one killed, not her.Terrified of facing the woman's family, I considered suicide more than once that afternoon. But my parents had already suffered the loss of one daughter when my eighEthridge, Shannon is the author of 'Completely His Loving Jesus Without Limits', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400071104 and ISBN 1400071100.