Surely The Angel Of The Lord Encamps
Gardenia Merren
Like some behemoth monster the other car came straight toward us its bright
lights shining like the eyes of a nocturnal beast on the attack. Father swerved,
there was the sound of Mother's voice, " Jesus, Oh, Father, help us."
and then an ominous Crashhh! the sound of splintering glass and silence as
our car careened towards an embankment and stopped at its very edge.
"Is everyone all right," Mother spoke, and her soft voice aborted
the bleak silence.
"Looks that way," I answered.
Father, who had been driving, opened the door on his side and getting out,
surveyed the ghastly dent the other car had left in the side of his car. My
sister, who, only, one minute before had been chatting excitedly about events
at the concert we had left a short time before, exited the back door somberly
and stared at the ditch we could have been thrown into if Father had not swerved
when he did. My shoulder hurt, slowly I and then mother retreated from the
damaged vehicle. We joined my Father and my sister and stood shivering in
the dark. We shivered because we were cold. We also shivered because we were
nervous, in fact my legs were shaking so hard I could scarcely stand.
Earlier that evening, our school band had given a stellar performance at
a little church miles from where we lived. I played the trombone. Amidst the
congratulations and the backslapping, there was a vague sense of impending
danger, that I could not shake off. My mother, my sister and I sang choruses
but the ambiguous sense that something was wrong would not leave me. I tried
to snooze but sleep would not come. I saw the car approach us, and then heard
the crash.
Trying to calm my frazzled nerves, I clung to my mother. In the darkness Father's
deep voice boomed, "Surely the angel of the Lord encamps around them
that fear Him and doth deliver them. Had I swerved too hard and too early,
we would have gone down the embankment.
Had I swerved too late, we would have had a front end collision and we all
might have fared much worse."