Tonight my daughter, the one with the learners permit, asked me, “Mom, I want to drive to church tonight. Will you let me drive?”
” Call your dad. I think he can drive with you when he gets home.” I said.
She called her dad and he hadn’t left work yet. ” Mom, Dad won’t be home in time. Will you please let me drive with you?”
I was the only person at home over the age of twenty-one that could sit in the passenger seat when she went fifty-five miles an hour on Highway 100 to church. My daughter was getting brave. I wasn’t. Thankfully I was wearing a nice bra and new underwear in case I was in a car accident.
“Okay mom, I am ready to go.” she yelled from the front door. I walked to the door, thinking she wasn’t really serious about driving. She may have changed her mind while I was loading the dishwasher. She tilted her head to one side and smiled as she reached her hand toward the car keys. I handed her the keys and said, “Just a minute. I have to get something.” I grabbed a Bible from the bookcase by the front door.
I held the bible firmly with both hands as she drove for 9.35 miles. She turned left five times. She turned right five times. She stopped at two red lights, four stop signs, went around five curves in the road, and merged into a lane on the highway. She had both hands on the steering wheel. I had both hands on my Bible.
” Two hands on the wheel. Get your hand back on the wheel,” I said.
” But I had to scratch my nose.”
” No nose scratching. Just drive.”
” I am glad I have to look at the road Mom, so I don’t have to see the expression on your face,”
“My face is fine. I am smiling now. ”
” Mom, why are you holding a bible. Why don’t you just pray?”.
“I am praying, but I need to hold onto something. The bible keeps me from gasping. If the name of the Lord is a strong tower I will be even safer holding the Bible that is full of the Lord’s name.”
God answered my prayers. My daughter drove safely to church, and I did not have to show an EMT crew my bra and underwear.
