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The trip home

D.P. Thiessen

She was about six months pregnant with her first child at the time, travelling home from a city shopping trip with her mother. The weather began to deteriorate. It started with blowing snow that was sticking to the road, and concluded with the traffic compressing the snow into a thick icy layer. She reduced her speed and began concentrating. Slipping into the ditch was the last thing she wanted now.

It was getting close to suppertime, and the sun was setting. A cluster of cars with flashing lights marked what appeared to be an accident on the road ahead. She decided she would rather not see that, and it was definitely time to stop for supper. Hopefully, a break would relieve some of the tension and restore some colour to her knuckles.

The waitress had a more accurate interpretation of the lights: “Did you realize that they have closed the Trans-Canada Highway?” The woman and her mother decided to leave town a different way, skirting the roadblock. They were not spending the night this close to home.

After a few kilometres, they turned onto a secondary highway. It was in no better shape than the Trans-Canada. Cautiously, they proceeded through a Native reserve. They were almost home. Then they saw it. A car was stuck or parked on the side of the road. It was hard to tell in the dark what the problem was, but it was obvious that there was a problem. One of the two men by the car was waving his arms in an attempt to flag down their car.

Would you have stopped? If you didn’t answer that question, that means you would have continued on. That’s the way it often is when it comes to helping – you have a couple of seconds to decide, and no decision is a “no” decision.

She stopped. The man came to the window. “Good evening, ladies. Just over the hill, there are two vehicles stuck in the ditch. The tow truck is there now, pulling them out. Please drive slowly as I think they may be on the road.”

She thanked him for the information and moved on. Over the hill, they saw the vehicles as he had described then and realized that if they had not stopped, they would either have crashed into the tow truck or gone into the ditch.

When I think about that story, I wonder how often I make my life more compacted by not helping my neighbour. How many blessings do I miss by continuing on my own way?

D.P. Thiessen is a teacher from Rocanville, Sask.

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Last modified August 22, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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