facing my fears

When Dylan went into Kindergarten, the hardest thing I had to deal with was putting his life in the hands of someone else. I stood and watched him get onto that bus for the first time and my heart hurt. For the first time in his little life, I was having to trust someone else to watch out for him and protect him. I struggled with this for quite some time. I know that my precious boys belong to my Jesus, but I am human and that part of me wants to protect them forever!

This morning, I had to face this fear. I stood outside and waved to my little 3rd grader as he got on the bus. I don't stand outside every morning, but this morning we were all dressed and ready to start our day! Dylan gets on his bus and he waves at me until he can't see me anymore ~ pricless! I stood there waving and signing "I love you" until his bus was out of sight. Zachary and I were standing there with Dabby when I heard the most awful sound ~ the screeching of tires and the breaking of glass! (My stomach is sick even as I write that!) I ran to the end of the driveway and see the bus sitting there with a huge cloud of smoke billowing up from it! My heart began to race and I went into "protective Mama mode"!! I grabbed Dabby and yelled for Zachary to get in the house. I jumped in the car and drove to the end of the street to see the bus stopped, a red car smashed up, broken glass on the street and my "baby" sitting on that bus!!

I jumped out of the car and it looked like everyone was ok ~ kids on the bus were fine and the lady that was driving the car was out of her car talking to the busdriver. I looked around and thanked the Lord for His protection! It could have been so much worse and yet, nobody was hurt. I guess the lady had lost control of her car and the busdriver slammed on his breaks to avoid hitting her. She ended up hitting the bus and damaging her car, but she wasn't hurt except for the seatbelt pulling across her shoulder. Dylan got off the bus and was very shaken up, as you can imagine! I asked him if he wanted me to take him to school and he took me up on that offer!!

We headed back home to pick Zachary up and get Dylan to school! As we're driving down the street, I see Zachary half way up the road walking towards me!! We stopped the car and little boy had tears in his eyes...he was scared and was coming to see if his "best brother" (his affectionate nickname for his brother) was ok! Dylan was telling me his side of the story. All he knew was that they slammed on the breaks, the busdriver was getting off the bus and yelling to the kids not to get off the bus and he sees this huge cloud of smoke. He didn't realize that it was just a cloud of dust, so he was freakin out that the bus was gonna explode or something and the busdriver told them to stay on the bus!!! By the time we got to school, everyone had calmed down and the heartrates had returned to normal!!

"Thank you, Father, for your hand of protection around that bus and the kids and the lady driving the car. Thank you that nobody was injured in this accident."