The nicest woman I could crash into

It snowed today, after having clear skies and roads for quite a while.  On the way to go work out I noticed that the roads were super-slick.  We took our time and were 10 minutes late but at least we were safe!  After working out we had to drive to Nathan's work to bring him the lunch he'd forgotten. 

It took a loooooong time to get there.  Then, just as we were pulling into the parking lot, my car started sliding!  In extreme slow motion we slid toward a pickup that was waiting to turn out onto the road.  The driver and I watched it happen in horror, with nothing either of us could do.  My driver-side fender hit right in front of her rear left tire.

I was amazed as a swear word flew out of my mouth.  See, I don't ever swear, so I'm not sure where it came from.  Maybe from the same place all this bleepity-bleep snow came from!  (Okay, okay, so we're in a drought and have been praying for snow IN THE MOUNTAINS where it will actually do us some good!)

The woman and I got out to inspect the damage and almost ended up on our butts.  The snow had been packed down by all the cars and then new, wet snow was making it even more slippery.  We looked at the damage.  Well, we looked at her car.  I could see light blue pieces of plastic on the ground that showed that my car had been damaged but since I was at fault I didn't care about my car.  I only cared about the dent and the long black streak on her shiny truck.  My visions of the van we've been saving up to buy shriveled and died.

The lady was so nice.  She said that she'd seen that I'd done all I could to stop the accident.  She made sure we were okay and seemed especially concerned about making sure the kids weren't injured.  Then she looked down at me in the front seat of my car and got halfway through asking me if I was pregnant when she realized that she'd seen a baby in the back.  If I hadn't felt so sick inside I would have laughed at being mistaken for a pregnant lady again.  As it was, I wasn't offended, figuring I could use all the sympathy I could get! 

Neither of us was very experienced with these kinds of things but we knew we were supposed to exchange information so we gave each other our names, addresses and phone numbers.  Afterwards, when I wasn't so flustered, I realized that--duh--I should have given her my insurance information.  But I figured they would call me if they wanted it, which I'm sure they would.

While I waited for the call I fretted and worried.  And I told Nathan how glad I was that we had old cars that we didn't care about getting nicked or scratched.  Had the situation been reversed, I would have told the poor perpetrator to have a nice day and not worry about it.  One more ding on my car is nothing.  But on their shiny truck...

The call came this afternoon.  It was her husband.  He introduced himself as the owner of the truck.  He explained that his wife hadn't known what information to get and told me what I'd already figured out.  Then he told me that it wouldn't go very well for me with the insurance.  With dread gripping my heart I just wanted to get on with it.  "So, do you need my policy number, or what do you need?" I asked.  He said, "You know, I don't like insurance.  I'm sick of it.  So I'm not going to do anything."

It took me a few moments to realize what he was suggesting and even then I didn't believe it.  "So you're not going to call my insurance and get it fixed?"

"No," he said.  "My wife saw that you had at least three kids.  I don't know what you do for a living but...well, consider it a late Christmas present."

I burst into tears.  I just kept saying, "God bless you!  Thank you so much!  God bless you!"

And I am going to be praying for that couple for a long time.  They remind me of the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew.  In the story, the Lord forgave a huge debt of his servant and then the servant went out and didn't forgive another debtor.  But in this case, the couple passed the test and extended mercy to others.  I'm going to send a thank you card to them, since I have their address but I wonder how anything I write could really convey what I feel for them.

Whose life have you changed for the better today?