Life is Beautiful (7)

I think God allows situations to happen in which we realize how short life is. It helps us to redirect our thoughts and actions. Things that seemed to be important don't seem to matter as much as memories, time with family, spiritual experiences. I had one of those "wake-up calls" just the other day. I was on my way to meet my friend for dinner. I had called him to assure him that I was coming, but that I would be a little bit late. 
Before I hung up, he said,"Hey... be careful when you're driving." 
Of course, I came back with a smart-alic remark," What?! You don't like my driving? What are you implying with that sort of comment?!"
He replied in all seriousness that I should just be careful and aware while driving over. Instead of being offended, I decided to just take his advice and only go over 5 over the speed limit as opposed to 10 or 15.
I was to meet him in Salt Lake, so I had quite a drive there as I started in Provo. It was starting to get dark and I had had a long day, so I turned on the radio looking for something good to listen to. I went through all the dials twice, not finding anything to listen to. 
Eventually, I just thought," Well, if there's nothing good on, I'll just turn it off." 
So I drove in silence except for the occasional nasally voice of my GPS system telling me where to turn. It was completely dark and I was 5 minutes away from my destination. I was driving behind a truck and he was going slow, so I looked to pull over into the left lane. A car was passing me on my left and I saw a truck to HIS left not check his blind spot and almost run into him. 
In my mind I was thinking," I need to avoid that truck because he looks like a hazardous driver."
I switch into the left lane, intending to pass both of the trucks- the one in front of me and the one that was a sketchy driver. Well the truck that had almost run into the other car pulled right in front of me into the lane I had just switched over to. As I looked at the bed of the truck, I saw tons of work equipment piled into the truck, but the thing that was most prevalent was the height of the ladder that was weakly strapped down with a few bungie cords. 
In my mind I thought," Seriously?! If that ladder came off, that would kill someone. This man is a huge hazard!"
I do have to say I had the thought that I should switch lanes, but there were cars on either side of me and I dismissed the thought, but not for long.
As I continued behind this truck, I saw one end of the ladder catch air and stood straight up. I knew it was going to fly up out of the truck any second. Sure enough, the air caught it just right and the whole ladder came flying out of the ladder and landed right in front of me sending up sparks and making a horrid high pitched sound. I didn't know what to do. I had no where to go. I had cars on both sides of me and a motorcyclist in back of me. I slammed on my brakes, waiting to either hear the sound of breaking glass as the ladder hit my wind shield or to feel the jerk of the motorcycle crashing into the back of my car. I don't know how it happened. As I slammed on my brakes, the cars next to me sped on, the motorcyclist switched lanes, and I moved into the left lane, without checking my mirrors or blind spot and the ladder went skidding across the freeway. While this was all happening, I don't think I realized how dangerous and fatal it all could have been. When I think back and realize how close I was to the truck and think about how that ladder bounced and was coming straight towards me and then somehow swerved and missed me and my car altogether, I just know that there is someone watching out for me. I shouldn't have come out of that with clean hands. But I did. I showed up to the restaurant a few minutes later and relayed my tale. I was able to shake it off pretty well, but the whole experience has left me thinking. My life really is not my own I realized. I can have it one day and the next it can be gone. I know that I have someone that really is looking out for me. It's time like these that I really can see how beautiful a life is.