Praise God for He is kind.

Yesterday afternoon on my way to pick up Andrew from his first day of clinicals at UI Student Health, I managed to stop paying attention and run a red light. Fortunately, I was the only one in the car (the girls were at my parents'), and nobody was hurt. Unfortunately, I was struck by another vehicle and spun around 180 degrees. The other vehicle was towed away (some extensive front end damage) and our 4Runner is being towed up to Spokane this morning to be examined by the insurance guy to see if it is a total loss (the back passenger quarter of the 4Runner is pretty mangled - trim ripped off, door squished in, tire shredded, back bumper crushed, other door unable to open, etc). I got a ticket for failure to stop at a red light, though I'm sure the policeman could have given me a much worse ticket if he had chosen to. We are exceedingly grateful for many things - that the girls were at my parents, that there was nobody crossing the street when I came through, that the other drivers weren't injured, that when I spun around I ended up 1/4" from the bumper of another car (that appears to not have been damaged), etc. Considering traffic at that time of day (4:45 in the afternoon) and the busyness of the intersection (6th and Jackson for you locals), things could have been much much worse, and I was thankful to wake up in my own bed this morning instead of in the hospital (and thankful nobody else was in the hospital either!).

Now we're dealing with the aftermath of not having a vehicle, and waiting to find out if ours is going to be fixed or if we need to begin shopping for a replacement. We need to be back in Spokane on Monday so that Andrew can start school, so we're hoping to have things fairly straightened out by then. Fortunately, we have wonderful family and friends to help us out so it looks like it won't be anything that we can't handle. Praise God for His mercies and kindness to us!