This weekend I received an amazing miracle. Me and my friend my friend decided to go to King's Island (an amusement park here in Indiana) with her Church Youth group. This group is full of some pretty inspiring people and I felt comfortable enough to go. So we drove the activity bus that was probably 5 rows, so not that big, down to the park at around 8. We got there by ten and let me tell you, I WAS SO NERVOUS. I have never riden a roller coaster in my life, except for this kid one at the Indianapolis zoo.....and I cried. Haha so you can see how nervous I was. We started out at "The Bat" and then we went straight to the big guns; the "Banshee." And boy was that roller coaster HUGE. I have been telling myself for the past week that I was going to force myself on these rides so I couldn't back out!! So I put my big girl pants on and marched my way to the line. I didn't look at the ride the whole time and once we got to the front, man did I have to pee. I was terrified. But I got on the ride and I rode it... it wasn't that easy, I mean I was SOBBING the whole time, you should've seen the picture afterwards. BUT I DID IT!!! I rode probably the most scary ride at the park. After that, I did almost all the rides except for the diamondback, the vortex, and Invertigo because the lines were like 2 hours long. I was SOOOOOO proud of myself. And now, I actually really enjoy roller coasters! So that's definatley one piece of advice from this post, ALWAYS try new things and face your fears! It's good to get out of your comfort zone and face fear in the eyes.
After a long day at the park, we left at about 8:30. We stopped at McDonalds on the way home to grab dinner and then it was 2 and half hours from there to go home. All day at the park, it was perfect weather. However, on the way home we hit some pretty hard rain. Me and my friend sat in the front row on the right side and we were listening to my iPod, almost asleep. But it really started to downpour and I remember thinking maybe we should stop somewhere and wait for it to pass. Then someone from the back said, "Guys put your seat belts on, it's raining pretty hard." So I put my seatbelt on and not ten seconds after that, the bus slammed on the brakes, my head flew against the seat in front of me, and you hear this awful crunching, shattering, screeching noise that still haunts me in my dreams. The bus jolted to a stop and the lights were off so I couldn't see too well. Me and my friend turned to each other to see if we were both alright and then my bus driver yells out "Is everyone okay??" and my friend, the only one replying, says yes. So he runs out of the bus to check on the other car, while everyone on the bus is freaking out. I had glass all in my hair so I tried picking that out. No more than 3 minutes, we hear and see sirens coming our way to help us. Half of the firefighters and half of the police officers came to us and asked and made sure if everyone was okay and somehow, we all were. Even more amazing, the other driver was okay. So the firefighters wanted to get all of us off the side of the highway so one by one, they led us to the back of the firetruck where the ambulance was. I was freaking out because WE WERE IN THE BACK OF THE FIRETRUCK IN AN AMBULANCE WHERE PEOPLE HAVE DIED AND THERE WAS ALL THIS SERIOUS MEDICAL STUFF ALL AROUND US!!!! and I was just still in shock. We all got in the back and they checked us out again to make sure we were all okay. Then they took us up to the Denny's right up the road to have us wait for another bus to come get us; the firetruck was silent the whole way there.
At Denny's we waited for about 30 minutes for our leader to come and we found out what had happened. We were going about 70mph down the highway and the car was going the opposite way coming towards us on the other side of the highway. Since it was raining so hard, the car hit a puddle and hydroplaned across the median straight towards us and we smacked the back half of the car. Both of our cars were destroyed. So we all gathered around and prayed and thanked God for saving our lives, and giving us all another chance on this earth, because things could have been A LOT worse. We waited for about an hour and a half and then a new bus came and got us. Which was the last thing I wanted to do; ride a bus, but we got home safely at around 1:30 and I went to bed around 3. I am SO SO thankful that everything turned out okay and it really opened my eyes that life can really change in the blink of an eye and we need to live like it's the last. I will always remember this amazing miracle that I received. Something ironic though was the fact that I was listening to this song called "Force of Nature" when we crashed and it really was because of a force of nature.... Needless to say, I will never be listening to that in the car every again....
"Cause you're a force of nature, look at what you've done,
I can taste the danger but I don't wanna run,
So pull me to the ground and I won't put up a fight,
I'm a caution taker but baby I'm a force of nature."
"Force of Nature" by Bea Miller
