DIVINE DESTINY - The Story - Part 3

(Continued from DIVINE DESTINY - The Story - Part 2)

My "driving career" began in New Orleans when I was a teen. My generation learned how to drive by just driving. I didn’t have a car, I hadn’t had any lessons - and I surely didn’t have a license! (I did have a gift for persuading people that I knew how to drive so that I could borrow their cars.) The first time I drove, I had an accident! I borrowed my brother-in-law’s prized Mustang to drive to the 7-11. When I was parking, I put my foot on the gas instead of the brakes. When the car didn’t stop, I hit the pedal harder and drove straight through the glass store front. The young store clerk told me to just drive away, and he would cover for me! Not too long after this, I side-swiped a half block of parked cars. My friend - whose car I was driving - took the rap, and paid the damages.

Don’t miss the parallel here of where the Divine meets the mundane to reveal the Mercy of Jesus. I broke the law. I was reckless. Others suffered. Yet I didn’t have to pay the price for my transgressions. (Sounds a lot like what Jesus did on the Cross, doesn’t it?) Anyway, I was convicted that I shouldn’t ever drive again. Seven years went by before I sat behind the wheel of a car.

When I moved to San Francisco, my husband said, “You’re 25. You need to get a license.” I pleaded with him to understand that I had a destiny with calamity whenever I drove. He dismissed my fears and pleas as superstition. So convinced was he, that he even volunteered to teach me himself. I think we got as far as the end of the driveway when he demanded I hire a professional driving instructor.

I was the instructor’s star pupil - I even aced driving on the Golden Gate Bridge - and I could stop on a dime at the bottom of a hill! No calamities happened when my teacher was in the car with me. I began to think I had been delivered! The curse was broken! After a month or so, the instructor was confident that I was ready to take the DMV test!

Passing the written and vision tests, I was assigned a DMV officer for the driving portion. He guided me to Chinatown. Unfortunately - and for the life of me - I did not know that pedestrians had the right of way!Honestly, in New Orleans, where I grew up, pedestrians did not have the right of way - at least I didn’t think so…Anyway, I approached an intersection and a crowd was crossing back and forth without any consideration that I was trying to cross. (How dare they!) So, I edged out and tapped a couple of the pedestrians with the nose of the car. They scattered. The DMV officer turned a ghastly shade of grey, then told me to drive immediately back to the DMV -  where he failed me without anymore ado! I was devastated. But I was determined to get a license now at any cost! It wasn’t a curse I was battling - it was the DMV - and my pride.

So, I devised a plan. At 4:45PM on a very rainy Friday, I walked into an obscure DMV office in the suburbs of San Francisco. The only one there was an older man. He had the look of “Oh, no. I just want to go home at 5:00”. Exactly what I had hoped! He locked up the office and let me take him for a spin - I just drove around the parking lot with him. There were no parked cars, no trees, no shrubberies - and no pedestrians! Thanks to that man and my plan, I have been driving legally for the last 34 years. But not without calamities…
I call this next season of my driving career “The Mercy Season”. My husband, had a classic Mercedes which he loved. Of course, he loved me better, so he handed me the keys and it was soon “my car”. I named it “Mercy” - not too clever a name for a Mercedes - but it wasn’t long before I realized it was a prophetic name for the car.. . The calamities started soon after.

To be continued...See DIVINE DESTINY - The Story - Part 4