The Power of Prayer
I’m an avid reader of newspapers. When possible, I try to pick up a local publication so I can get a feel for what’s happening in that specific city or region. Often times I can learn about people and places hundreds of miles from my own hometown. Other times when I’m in a pinch to fuel my thirst for knowledge I am forced to settle for a national paper like USA Today. That publication is fine for keeping up with our nation and world, but it lacks the intimate appeal of the Any-City Press. It’s for that reason alone I hope all the small town newspapers can keep it together and continue on in these hard times as the work they do directly contributes to a regions unique identity. All right, one paragraph done and I’m already sidetracked, let’s get this train-of-thought back on the tracks.
Back on October 15th 2009, I was in the upstairs bed of my truck, scanning through a copy of the USA Today before bedtime. One of my favorite stop-and-read parts (of any newspaper really) is the reader comment section. I like to know what people are talking about or even just thinking about, so I can have imaginary arguments as to why they are wrong, or why they or right. In my defense, it keeps me on top of things and keeps me sharp in case I’m ever called into an impromptu debate on a really important subject I care nothing about. If that’s not enough of a defense, I’ll just add that it makes me sleep better. Besides, I sing love songs all day on the road; if I did that at night also, people may begin to think I’m a little strange.
One comment in particular caught my eye, and for the first time since I have been reading comments, I disagreed with the writer so strongly that I had to write about it. I’m not sure if the writer is flat out wrong or not, but I think I have a valid argument regarding her theories on the subject matter.
.
Here’s what I read:
Prayer Losing Meaning
I have always thought it the height of conceit and arrogance when a sports player or team either prays before a game or looks up to the sky after making a play, asking or thanking God for a good outcome.
If there were a God, why would he give a hoot about someone making a touchdown? There are more crucial issues such as wars, starvation and natural disasters that need tending to. Why would one even want God’s attention for such a trivial matter as doing well in a sports game?
Displays of faith on the field are becoming so pervasive that the practice is watering down what prayer is intended to mean.
Judith Zieve
West Conshohocken, PA.
I have a confession to make: I’m not an overly religious man, but rather a spiritual one that happens to believe in the power that prayers hold for those who partake in them. I probably wouldn’t write that statement if I didn’t have a personal experience to share with you. This particular personal experience is a pretty serious one. Fasten your seatbelt.
As I remember it, July 16th 2008 was a beautifully warm, sunny day with summer just getting its act into full swing. I was dispatched on (what appeared) to be an easy two-day trip around the central Maryland area. As usual, it was a routine and enjoyable day, which it was until I prepared to leave my second to last stop of the day in Laurel, Maryland. I had delivered to this customer a lot of times, but this time it would be different. Today there would be an accident.
I try to avoid writing the same thing twice and there is really no better way to explain exactly what happened than to share what I originally wrote just a few hours after the occurrence. I’ll also share a few pictures to help you fully understand the magnitude of the scene. Be forewarned, I’ve heard it said that ‘pictures are worth a thousand words’ but anyone who has seen these pictures has said only two: Holy- followed by the four letter word adult synonym for poop.
Driver Report for accident that occurred on 7-16-08.
On Wednesday, July 16th at approximately 3:40 PM I was departing (customer) located in an industrial park at (somewhere on) Cherry Lane. I have never operated my vehicle in a manner consistent with ‘being in a hurry’ and this day was no different. My next and final stop for the day was only two miles away and they didn't close till five in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time.
I pulled to the top of the driveway and stopped at the stop sign located at the end and waited a minute or two for traffic to clear. I would be turning left heading South East onto Cherry Lane. It is worth noting I have been to this customer many times and have left the same way with no incident. I refer you to my picture of the skid marks, which gives a good representation to what I was seeing out my driver’s side window. I saw no traffic coming from either direction and did the standard look left, look right, look left again and began my entrance into the intersection.
As the nose of the truck cleared the middle lane of the North West side of Cherry Lane I noticed a silver car approaching from my left hand side heading North West. I initially wasn't concerned because he was just rounding the curve that you can see in the distance in the skid mark picture. As I proceeded to accelerate I quickly become concerned when I realized the car was approaching at what I can only describe as an extremely high rate of speed. I had my left turn signal on, and I was driving a tractor trailer, kind of hard to miss- but the driver must have been distracted from watching the road ahead since he did not brake at all until it was too late.
I kept the throttle down with hopes of moving forward enough to have the car pass safely behind the trailer. Unfortunately with the combination of his excessive speed (well above the posted speed limit, my guess is perhaps double the posted limit) and failure to observe the road in front him he was unable to stop and impacted the underside of my trailer just forward of the front tires of the trailer. Since I was doing my best to clear his path, I was still moving when he impacted me and the trailer tires pulled his car approximately three feet forward.
After setting the brakes I jumped out with my cell phone to call 911 but I noticed someone exit from the vehicle and I went to check if he was okay. I started to dial 911 but before I could hit the send button there was a police officer on scene.
The driver of the car did not appear to have any noticeable injuries other then a few cuts and scrapes and was walking under his own power. You can tell from the pictures he came within inches of certain death. The police later informed me he had no insurance, no registration and was driving on a suspended license.
I have given much thought to the entire situation. I have questioned what I could have done differently and even considered the possibility that perhaps I should have departed to the right instead of the left. Had I done that, and pulled out at the exact moment that I did, which I most likely would have, the situation could have ended much worse. I would have had to pull out into at least the second lane to make the swing, blocking much of the road and this guy would have still been going to fast and still not paying attention. He probably would have slammed into the rear of the trailer or the tandem tires themselves, most likely killing him or at the very least causing severe injuries.
I am very proud of my safety record up until this incident and quite dismayed about the whole situation. As a professional driver I believe it is my duty to do what I can to protect other non-professionals from their own thoughtless and dangerous acts. Up until this point of my career I have never even had a close call so to speak. I consider myself to be a safe, courteous and careful driver. With that said I have come to the conclusion that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this situation, the driver in the car had no business being on the road given his lack of a valid drivers license (and lack of other credentials). Besides that fact, the other contributing factors were his high rate of speed and failure to pay attention to the roadway in front of him. To sum it up, my trailer simply became the target of a missile with a faulty guidance system.
If there are any more questions please feel free to call me anytime.
Sincerely,
Jason S. Harry
Within the first seconds after the impact, the chaos began. There was a full contingent of fire trucks, police cars and EMS vehicles. People were mostly trying to calm down the driver of the car, a young man just twenty years old, who through his own actions had a very close brush with death. He was clearly in shock but I was instantly relieved that he was otherwise uninjured. To his credit, he had a last minute spark of intelligence and reclined his seat into the full back position, likely keeping his head on his shoulders and saving his life.
Nobody seemed to want to bother at all with me, even the Police, and I was left alone to ponder just what happened. My head was filled with questions, one popping up right after another, no answers coming fast, if at all: What will happen next? Will the police cite me? Will I even be able to drive this truck away today? Do I really want to? What would I be feeling if this kid HAD been killed? Will my company fire me immediately? WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME!
It was quite a scene to say the least. I remember just standing back and looking at it and watching people driving by in the westbound lanes that were still open. I knew I was being prosecuted in the court of public opinion; it probably looked like I pulled right out in front of the car and he crashed right into me. That’s another reason I wanted to share this story, things are not always how they appear. Statistically, most accidents involving a tractor-trailer and a car are in fact caused by the car. Statistics didn’t mean much to me as I stood next to my rig with a car stuck underneath the trailer, I felt like just another trucker that was guilty until proven innocent.
The Police finally did talk to me, but that was just to ask for my license and other credentials for the truck. I couldn’t believe they never once asked what happened but after reading the police report I could see they knew full well what transpired and placed the blame on the driver of the car (as they should have.) Afterwards a wrecker arrived to take the car away and I backed the truck down the driveway I was trying to leave from in the first place. I needed a few minutes to gather myself and check the trailer for damage, which amazingly, was minimal. After talking to my company shop in Wisconsin, I was given the green light to hit the road again and drove away to my next stop. I was never the same again.
I spent weeks trying to figure it all out and it temporarily put a damper on the way I looked at the world. For a while, trucking just wasn’t fun and in fact I even stopped writing about it- I went as far as to remove my blog completely. Truthfully, I felt that I was trained so well back at school that I had full confidence that I would never kill anyone and it came real close to that with this accident. I never took it into consideration that even when I did everything right, the chance existed that someone might still choose to kill themself and I’d be a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even as I tried to wrap my mind around that possibility, I kept coming back to the big question of “why did this happen to me?” After all, this kind of thing never happens to me! I spent some more time thinking about it knowing there had to be answers somewhere.
I thought back to my first trip back at Schneider National. I remember driving away from Carlisle into the darkness and into the uncertainty of what I had gotten myself into with my new profession. When I arrived at my destination of Mehoopany, Pa a few short hours later, I laid down in the bed and looked up at the ceiling and was concerned about how big the truck was, just on the inside! Before I fell asleep, I said a few words (some may call it a prayer) that night, and almost every night (and morning) thereafter. The words are personal but it goes along the lines of keeping me safe and not letting anything bad happen to my truck or to me. The key words above are ‘almost every night.’ My answers were starting to present themselves.
When this accident happened, I was at the point in my career where I was feeling confident but not cocky. I always considered myself a safe and careful driver as I do to this very day. But something was amiss- somewhere, sometime, I stopped offering up those words that I admit, were nothing short of a prayer. I take that back, that was cocky of me.
Right about now you may be wondering what any of this has to do with a lady writing into a newspaper regarding sports players using prayer on the field: how she considers it “pervasive” and how it “waters down what prayer is intended to mean.” Well, that’s the easy part.
Whether or not you agree with the enormous sums of money these sports players make is irrelevant and should be considered a completely different subject matter. The fact remains however, that these people are athletes who have worked extremely hard to arrive at where they are in their chosen profession. Thousands of people have tried out for the chance they have and only a select few have made the cut; in other words these people have overcome the odds to have the opportunity that they have through will and pure determination.
Once they make the team, they have a wonderful opportunity to take care of their family and friends, but all of that hinges on their performance out on the field. If they can’t perform up to management’s expectations they could be cut and end up with nothing. If they are seriously injured, their entire career could be finished and their future earning potential could disappear. There is a whole lot on the line every time a player steps on the field and their future (and that of their families) hinges in the balance, one play at a time.
In my opinion, an athlete has the full right to say a prayer and offer thanks when something goes right, especially when there is a tremendous chance that so much can go wrong. If the person offering the prayer is using it for noble intentions, I don’t think it is “trivial” or “waters down” the overall meaning of prayer. I can’t answer for God but I like to think he would agree.
By now you may be asking “But wait a minute, what do professional athletes, truck drivers and prayer have in common?” Again, that’s simple.
I look at my company as a team operation, as many people probably can relate to. We have salespeople, shippers, receivers and more managers and supervisors then I would even attempt to count. We also have drivers, who out of the entire team likely have the most dangerous job of all. We’re kind of like quarterbacks in a way- the team has a lot invested in us and depends upon us to get the job done when we’re out “on the field.” If we get hurt, have accidents or otherwise can’t perform the way the company hopes we will, we could end up being cut from the team and that can affect our families in the same manner as it could a sports superstar, just on a different level.
I’m a quarterback for a trucking outfit and I hope to keep doing a good job and performing at the level my teams management expects of me. Unfortunately, in the world we live in today, if I had enough accidents that were my not my fault I could still be cut from the team via the Department of Transportations doing. Beyond that, I have no desire to see anyone get hurt out on the road and that is one reason I utilize prayer along with my professional abilities.
Since my accident, I have learned to never forget my prayers before I leave, and I have learned to modify them to include everyone else I interact with on the road each day. As a professional driver I am required to do what’s called a “pre-trip” inspection of my vehicle before I hit the road. This inspection is to basically make sure everything like lights, brakes, and the engine are in good working order and the tires and wheels are not in danger of flying off. After I complete this inspection, I take one last lap around the monstrosity of a machine, just kind of look over it one last time and offer up my prayer. At the end of the day when I’m safely parked and lying in bed, I offer thanks for another successful day.
During the day, I often use mini-prayers with abundance. If I’m running with another truck for an extended amount of time and one of us exits the highway, I’ll offer up a silent prayer that he (or she) has safe travels. If a car passes me by at a high rate of speed with an infant (or just a child) in a car seat (or even not) I’ll pray they make it safely where they are going. When I hug my Wife and kids goodbye before I leave for a trip, inside I am praying that it is not the last time they will see me alive. I even use them outside of the trucking world- once my favorite waitress informed me she had a lump on her breast and I prayed it wasn’t what we all hoped it wasn’t (it wasn’t.) Another time I said prayers for a friend whose Father was in the hospital, as any good friend would do. On a daily basis I use them to pray for my extended family members that may be in need of one. I’ll continue my use of mini-prayers and I always believe they are for a noble cause and hope whoever is listening to them agrees and acts accordingly.
Am I placing blame for my involvement in the accident on my lack of prayers? That would make me a Monday morning quarterback (I’m not) so it’s not even worth speculating on. I do tend to look at the situation as “over and done with” but I can say with a resounding “NO” that I’m not deserving of any blame as was reflected in the Police report. Sometimes people who may have wandered off their path need a wakeup call in some form to snap their life back into order- and I think this was that time for the young man who hit me. I learned some things from that experience, and when I look back on that fateful day, I pray that he did too.
Will the simple act of prayer prevent me from being involved in another accident, my fault or not? Not by itself, it’s up to me to use my professional abilities the best that I can, and it’s up to a higher power to accept my prayer and look after my fellow motorists and me. It does bring me a certain level of comfort, and I hope it would also bring my neighbors on the road comfort too knowing that they are within my “prayer bubble” if they see me out on the road. I like to think even my friend Judith would approve.
Back on October 15th 2009, I was in the upstairs bed of my truck, scanning through a copy of the USA Today before bedtime. One of my favorite stop-and-read parts (of any newspaper really) is the reader comment section. I like to know what people are talking about or even just thinking about, so I can have imaginary arguments as to why they are wrong, or why they or right. In my defense, it keeps me on top of things and keeps me sharp in case I’m ever called into an impromptu debate on a really important subject I care nothing about. If that’s not enough of a defense, I’ll just add that it makes me sleep better. Besides, I sing love songs all day on the road; if I did that at night also, people may begin to think I’m a little strange.
One comment in particular caught my eye, and for the first time since I have been reading comments, I disagreed with the writer so strongly that I had to write about it. I’m not sure if the writer is flat out wrong or not, but I think I have a valid argument regarding her theories on the subject matter.
.
Here’s what I read:
Prayer Losing Meaning
I have always thought it the height of conceit and arrogance when a sports player or team either prays before a game or looks up to the sky after making a play, asking or thanking God for a good outcome.
If there were a God, why would he give a hoot about someone making a touchdown? There are more crucial issues such as wars, starvation and natural disasters that need tending to. Why would one even want God’s attention for such a trivial matter as doing well in a sports game?
Displays of faith on the field are becoming so pervasive that the practice is watering down what prayer is intended to mean.
Judith Zieve
West Conshohocken, PA.
I have a confession to make: I’m not an overly religious man, but rather a spiritual one that happens to believe in the power that prayers hold for those who partake in them. I probably wouldn’t write that statement if I didn’t have a personal experience to share with you. This particular personal experience is a pretty serious one. Fasten your seatbelt.
As I remember it, July 16th 2008 was a beautifully warm, sunny day with summer just getting its act into full swing. I was dispatched on (what appeared) to be an easy two-day trip around the central Maryland area. As usual, it was a routine and enjoyable day, which it was until I prepared to leave my second to last stop of the day in Laurel, Maryland. I had delivered to this customer a lot of times, but this time it would be different. Today there would be an accident.
I try to avoid writing the same thing twice and there is really no better way to explain exactly what happened than to share what I originally wrote just a few hours after the occurrence. I’ll also share a few pictures to help you fully understand the magnitude of the scene. Be forewarned, I’ve heard it said that ‘pictures are worth a thousand words’ but anyone who has seen these pictures has said only two: Holy- followed by the four letter word adult synonym for poop.
Driver Report for accident that occurred on 7-16-08.
On Wednesday, July 16th at approximately 3:40 PM I was departing (customer) located in an industrial park at (somewhere on) Cherry Lane. I have never operated my vehicle in a manner consistent with ‘being in a hurry’ and this day was no different. My next and final stop for the day was only two miles away and they didn't close till five in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time.
I pulled to the top of the driveway and stopped at the stop sign located at the end and waited a minute or two for traffic to clear. I would be turning left heading South East onto Cherry Lane. It is worth noting I have been to this customer many times and have left the same way with no incident. I refer you to my picture of the skid marks, which gives a good representation to what I was seeing out my driver’s side window. I saw no traffic coming from either direction and did the standard look left, look right, look left again and began my entrance into the intersection.
As the nose of the truck cleared the middle lane of the North West side of Cherry Lane I noticed a silver car approaching from my left hand side heading North West. I initially wasn't concerned because he was just rounding the curve that you can see in the distance in the skid mark picture. As I proceeded to accelerate I quickly become concerned when I realized the car was approaching at what I can only describe as an extremely high rate of speed. I had my left turn signal on, and I was driving a tractor trailer, kind of hard to miss- but the driver must have been distracted from watching the road ahead since he did not brake at all until it was too late.
I kept the throttle down with hopes of moving forward enough to have the car pass safely behind the trailer. Unfortunately with the combination of his excessive speed (well above the posted speed limit, my guess is perhaps double the posted limit) and failure to observe the road in front him he was unable to stop and impacted the underside of my trailer just forward of the front tires of the trailer. Since I was doing my best to clear his path, I was still moving when he impacted me and the trailer tires pulled his car approximately three feet forward.
After setting the brakes I jumped out with my cell phone to call 911 but I noticed someone exit from the vehicle and I went to check if he was okay. I started to dial 911 but before I could hit the send button there was a police officer on scene.
The driver of the car did not appear to have any noticeable injuries other then a few cuts and scrapes and was walking under his own power. You can tell from the pictures he came within inches of certain death. The police later informed me he had no insurance, no registration and was driving on a suspended license.
I have given much thought to the entire situation. I have questioned what I could have done differently and even considered the possibility that perhaps I should have departed to the right instead of the left. Had I done that, and pulled out at the exact moment that I did, which I most likely would have, the situation could have ended much worse. I would have had to pull out into at least the second lane to make the swing, blocking much of the road and this guy would have still been going to fast and still not paying attention. He probably would have slammed into the rear of the trailer or the tandem tires themselves, most likely killing him or at the very least causing severe injuries.
I am very proud of my safety record up until this incident and quite dismayed about the whole situation. As a professional driver I believe it is my duty to do what I can to protect other non-professionals from their own thoughtless and dangerous acts. Up until this point of my career I have never even had a close call so to speak. I consider myself to be a safe, courteous and careful driver. With that said I have come to the conclusion that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this situation, the driver in the car had no business being on the road given his lack of a valid drivers license (and lack of other credentials). Besides that fact, the other contributing factors were his high rate of speed and failure to pay attention to the roadway in front of him. To sum it up, my trailer simply became the target of a missile with a faulty guidance system.
If there are any more questions please feel free to call me anytime.
Sincerely,
Jason S. Harry
Within the first seconds after the impact, the chaos began. There was a full contingent of fire trucks, police cars and EMS vehicles. People were mostly trying to calm down the driver of the car, a young man just twenty years old, who through his own actions had a very close brush with death. He was clearly in shock but I was instantly relieved that he was otherwise uninjured. To his credit, he had a last minute spark of intelligence and reclined his seat into the full back position, likely keeping his head on his shoulders and saving his life.
Nobody seemed to want to bother at all with me, even the Police, and I was left alone to ponder just what happened. My head was filled with questions, one popping up right after another, no answers coming fast, if at all: What will happen next? Will the police cite me? Will I even be able to drive this truck away today? Do I really want to? What would I be feeling if this kid HAD been killed? Will my company fire me immediately? WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME!
It was quite a scene to say the least. I remember just standing back and looking at it and watching people driving by in the westbound lanes that were still open. I knew I was being prosecuted in the court of public opinion; it probably looked like I pulled right out in front of the car and he crashed right into me. That’s another reason I wanted to share this story, things are not always how they appear. Statistically, most accidents involving a tractor-trailer and a car are in fact caused by the car. Statistics didn’t mean much to me as I stood next to my rig with a car stuck underneath the trailer, I felt like just another trucker that was guilty until proven innocent.
The Police finally did talk to me, but that was just to ask for my license and other credentials for the truck. I couldn’t believe they never once asked what happened but after reading the police report I could see they knew full well what transpired and placed the blame on the driver of the car (as they should have.) Afterwards a wrecker arrived to take the car away and I backed the truck down the driveway I was trying to leave from in the first place. I needed a few minutes to gather myself and check the trailer for damage, which amazingly, was minimal. After talking to my company shop in Wisconsin, I was given the green light to hit the road again and drove away to my next stop. I was never the same again.
I spent weeks trying to figure it all out and it temporarily put a damper on the way I looked at the world. For a while, trucking just wasn’t fun and in fact I even stopped writing about it- I went as far as to remove my blog completely. Truthfully, I felt that I was trained so well back at school that I had full confidence that I would never kill anyone and it came real close to that with this accident. I never took it into consideration that even when I did everything right, the chance existed that someone might still choose to kill themself and I’d be a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even as I tried to wrap my mind around that possibility, I kept coming back to the big question of “why did this happen to me?” After all, this kind of thing never happens to me! I spent some more time thinking about it knowing there had to be answers somewhere.
I thought back to my first trip back at Schneider National. I remember driving away from Carlisle into the darkness and into the uncertainty of what I had gotten myself into with my new profession. When I arrived at my destination of Mehoopany, Pa a few short hours later, I laid down in the bed and looked up at the ceiling and was concerned about how big the truck was, just on the inside! Before I fell asleep, I said a few words (some may call it a prayer) that night, and almost every night (and morning) thereafter. The words are personal but it goes along the lines of keeping me safe and not letting anything bad happen to my truck or to me. The key words above are ‘almost every night.’ My answers were starting to present themselves.
When this accident happened, I was at the point in my career where I was feeling confident but not cocky. I always considered myself a safe and careful driver as I do to this very day. But something was amiss- somewhere, sometime, I stopped offering up those words that I admit, were nothing short of a prayer. I take that back, that was cocky of me.
Right about now you may be wondering what any of this has to do with a lady writing into a newspaper regarding sports players using prayer on the field: how she considers it “pervasive” and how it “waters down what prayer is intended to mean.” Well, that’s the easy part.
Whether or not you agree with the enormous sums of money these sports players make is irrelevant and should be considered a completely different subject matter. The fact remains however, that these people are athletes who have worked extremely hard to arrive at where they are in their chosen profession. Thousands of people have tried out for the chance they have and only a select few have made the cut; in other words these people have overcome the odds to have the opportunity that they have through will and pure determination.
Once they make the team, they have a wonderful opportunity to take care of their family and friends, but all of that hinges on their performance out on the field. If they can’t perform up to management’s expectations they could be cut and end up with nothing. If they are seriously injured, their entire career could be finished and their future earning potential could disappear. There is a whole lot on the line every time a player steps on the field and their future (and that of their families) hinges in the balance, one play at a time.
In my opinion, an athlete has the full right to say a prayer and offer thanks when something goes right, especially when there is a tremendous chance that so much can go wrong. If the person offering the prayer is using it for noble intentions, I don’t think it is “trivial” or “waters down” the overall meaning of prayer. I can’t answer for God but I like to think he would agree.
By now you may be asking “But wait a minute, what do professional athletes, truck drivers and prayer have in common?” Again, that’s simple.
I look at my company as a team operation, as many people probably can relate to. We have salespeople, shippers, receivers and more managers and supervisors then I would even attempt to count. We also have drivers, who out of the entire team likely have the most dangerous job of all. We’re kind of like quarterbacks in a way- the team has a lot invested in us and depends upon us to get the job done when we’re out “on the field.” If we get hurt, have accidents or otherwise can’t perform the way the company hopes we will, we could end up being cut from the team and that can affect our families in the same manner as it could a sports superstar, just on a different level.
I’m a quarterback for a trucking outfit and I hope to keep doing a good job and performing at the level my teams management expects of me. Unfortunately, in the world we live in today, if I had enough accidents that were my not my fault I could still be cut from the team via the Department of Transportations doing. Beyond that, I have no desire to see anyone get hurt out on the road and that is one reason I utilize prayer along with my professional abilities.
Since my accident, I have learned to never forget my prayers before I leave, and I have learned to modify them to include everyone else I interact with on the road each day. As a professional driver I am required to do what’s called a “pre-trip” inspection of my vehicle before I hit the road. This inspection is to basically make sure everything like lights, brakes, and the engine are in good working order and the tires and wheels are not in danger of flying off. After I complete this inspection, I take one last lap around the monstrosity of a machine, just kind of look over it one last time and offer up my prayer. At the end of the day when I’m safely parked and lying in bed, I offer thanks for another successful day.
During the day, I often use mini-prayers with abundance. If I’m running with another truck for an extended amount of time and one of us exits the highway, I’ll offer up a silent prayer that he (or she) has safe travels. If a car passes me by at a high rate of speed with an infant (or just a child) in a car seat (or even not) I’ll pray they make it safely where they are going. When I hug my Wife and kids goodbye before I leave for a trip, inside I am praying that it is not the last time they will see me alive. I even use them outside of the trucking world- once my favorite waitress informed me she had a lump on her breast and I prayed it wasn’t what we all hoped it wasn’t (it wasn’t.) Another time I said prayers for a friend whose Father was in the hospital, as any good friend would do. On a daily basis I use them to pray for my extended family members that may be in need of one. I’ll continue my use of mini-prayers and I always believe they are for a noble cause and hope whoever is listening to them agrees and acts accordingly.
Am I placing blame for my involvement in the accident on my lack of prayers? That would make me a Monday morning quarterback (I’m not) so it’s not even worth speculating on. I do tend to look at the situation as “over and done with” but I can say with a resounding “NO” that I’m not deserving of any blame as was reflected in the Police report. Sometimes people who may have wandered off their path need a wakeup call in some form to snap their life back into order- and I think this was that time for the young man who hit me. I learned some things from that experience, and when I look back on that fateful day, I pray that he did too.
Will the simple act of prayer prevent me from being involved in another accident, my fault or not? Not by itself, it’s up to me to use my professional abilities the best that I can, and it’s up to a higher power to accept my prayer and look after my fellow motorists and me. It does bring me a certain level of comfort, and I hope it would also bring my neighbors on the road comfort too knowing that they are within my “prayer bubble” if they see me out on the road. I like to think even my friend Judith would approve.
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Signed - One of your biggest fans!
Lipstick Trucker- I failed to mention I wasn't the only trucker who makes use of prayer so thanks for giving me the chance to say that. I'm glad to have you as a friend and look forward to reading more of your writings!
Jenae, so glad you liked this story- I have a lot of passion regarding this subject so spending the time was no object. Thanks for the prayers and I hope your family is well!
I know where you are coming from. I was in a accident last summer my self. Mine the other guy died on the spot. I was going down the road B/T and all of a sudden I felt a huge thump I will never forget. A crotch rocket hit my rear tandem on the drivers side. They don't know how fast he was going but others on the road guessed over 150+ mph. I pulled over as fast as I could and got out and saw parts all over and by then a guy came up to me, I ask him where the car was that hit me thinking they had ran. Then He told me it was a bike. About then I just went in to shock. I ask where is he at is he ok? It took us what seemed like for ever to find him. The other guy said hes dead, I had to see for my self and there was no pulse. It was obvious he was dead.
I didn't know a body could be twisted in so many different directions. He and the bike flew off the tire caught the corner of the sleeper and flew about 200 feet.
He hit me so hard it blew out both tires and bent the rims along with it ent the rearend also.
I was treated like the one in the wrong also, tell the Sargent came in to my hospital room the next day and told me there was nothing I could have done to stop it, my logs where fine and my truck was good also I had nothing to worry about. The cop who did the acc report was going to give me a ticket for my tail lights being bent back? The Sergeant said he didn't know what the hell he was thinking with that much damage to the truck how did he not think they may have been bent in the wreck.
The company was real good about it they told me to take as much time as I needed, I had to go see a shrink for a bit to make sure I was dealing with it ok before they would put me back in a truck.
Getting back in the truck was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I know what you mean its just not as fun any more. Its getting better now.
My butt puckers still when one of them passes me. Sorry for the long rant but hope it gets better for you also.
A fellow driver