Grateful for Nothing

I have nothing to be grateful for this year.  Nothing that I know of, anyway.  We had no major illnesses requiring miraculous healings.  No job loss, no house fire, no broken bones.  Nothing whatsoever interfered with the normal, peaceful rhythm of our lives.

What I mean to say is that life has gone along as usual this year, and that is the “nothing” that I’m thankul for.

The Lord is always actively intervening on our behalf, even though we often aren’t aware of His protection.  I caught a glimpse of His hidden work recently, as our family was narrowly spared from disaster twice in one month.

As we were leaving church one Sunday, my husband was delayed.  I ended up on one side of the street, and he on the other.  Our seven-year-old son wanted to be with his daddy, so he darted into the road without looking, running to the other side.  I screamed as I saw a large pickup truck heading right for him.

In God’s providence, the driver had his window down, and heard my scream.  He slammed on the brakes and my son stopped, paralyzed, right by the truck’s front wheel.  One split second was all that lay between the something that could have happened and the nothing that did.

Three weeks and two thousand miles later, we were nearly home, after a long, cross-country trip.  How frightened I had been before we left, having never driven so far from home alone with my children before.  Yet nothing had gone wrong.  My husband had told me that I was in no more danger one thousand miles from home than I was right here in our own town.

He was right.

Three miles from home, we were struck by a hit-and-run driver, presumably drunk.  He barreled around the corner, on our side of the road.  We swerved into the ditch, yet on he came, straight towards our van.  At the last moment, he veered away, shearing off our side mirror but leaving us unharmed.

One second is nothing, yet it made all the difference in the world to us.

How many more times has the Lord protected us from harm, when we weren’t even aware of it?  Now that’s something to be grateful for.

“The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” Psalm 121:8

About The Author

Writer / Editorial Board Molly Evert and her husband David have been married for 18 years. They spent the first several years of marriage serving as missionaries, and now they reside in Georgia. Molly stays busy homeschooling her four boys, ages 4 to 12, as well as writing and speaking. Molly is the creator of My Audio School, a website which provides educational audio content for children. She is a writer for the Georgia Home Educator's Association, and she writes a ministry blog and a blog for home educators. She also teaches at women's conferences. You can find her articles and teaching podcasts on her blogs at: Countercultural Mom Countercultural School My Audio School.