Melanie's Story

Have I ever mentioned that you are precious to me and I love you?

I want to tell you those two things today—yes YOU (and your family)-if you are reading this. I hope I do the things the Lord had in mind for me when He spared my life Friday afternoon; I’ll begin by telling you that you—in your special way, each one of you—hold a special place in my heart and have contributed to my life; thank you!! Your relationship is a treasure to me!

I was driving home from a fieldtrip to the zoo in New Orleans Friday—which I’d gone on with Joy (which was after a fieldtrip in New Orleans Thursday on the streetcars with Jacob, and which was one day before the half marathon in New Orleans the next morning which I’ve been training for). I fell asleep at the wheel with the cruise set on about 61 mph coming up highway 21.

I crossed the oncoming lane of traffic, sailed over the ditch, just missed the first telephone pole, drove straight along the tree line and missed the second telephone pole, flew over a couple of felled trees and came to a stop in a pile of deep gravel. I jumped out to see if I’d caused anyone to crash (OH, SOOOOOOO THANKFULLY NOT!!!!!). The 3 drivers behind me stopped and ran over to see if I was all right (one of them being a fellow fieldtripping mom—she told me I’d been airborne). The men inspected the van and could not believe [there was] so little damage and that I’d missed both telephone poles. One of the men kept saying, “you’d better say an extra prayer tonight—you are so lucky.”

The sweet mom was shaking so badly after watching this, she could hardly drive. The men checked and didn’t see anything leaking from the bottom, so they helped me steer through the gravel and back onto the road home. I didn’t wait until night for that ‘extra prayer.’ I dropped to my knees on the driveway to give the Lord thanks for keeping a mother here for our children and a wife for Scott. Needless to say, I couldn’t take that nap I’d planned on—my mind and heart were racing with thoughts of what might’ve/ should’ve been and with humble gratitude for the Lord’s miraculous hand in my behalf.

As the first of our children arrived home, again, my heart ran over with gratitude that their Mother was here to greet them. Word spreads fast, Joy already knew; our neighbor, the school secretary came over to check on me, the Sheriff came by to see if there was a child in the car and if he/she was all right—soosooooooooo grateful Joy was on the bus!

Needless to say, every little thing has been seen in a new light for me. As I was gathering dirty laundry late that night after the church trunk-or-treat party, I told Scott how sweet it was to be doing such a chore! How thankful I was this morning to serve my family the typical Monday morning pancakes. How grateful I was to sit with our children at church Sunday…and on and on and on. I hope I do good things with my second chance; I am totally in awe!

Well, the half marathon paled in comparison the next morning, but once again I was blessed. The humidity and temperature had dropped and it was perfect weather for me and my fellow 2,500 runners. I had a goal to keep my 12 minute mile pace, but when they called out the time with only 2 miles remaining I was way ahead of myself—so when I got to the finish line and couldn’t see the clock—I didn’t care too much; besides the water table was my main thought about that time! I had looked at my own watch and realized that at half past the hour it would be easy to figure my time, but I got distracted……….so about 4 hours later at home, I remembered and said, “oh, yeah, I can figure out what time I got!” It was fun to look for and find some members of the church that I knew after the race, and the Blue Bunny ice cream bars weren’t a bad find either J! (I passed up the free beer—guess the race was pretty ok because it didn’t drive me to start drinking! ha, ha!)

Well, there are “Saints” of all kinds—thankfully the New Orleans Saints fans were happy to receive trick-or-treaters a day early due to the Sunday night game—this worked in our favor so we could let the children enjoy trick or treating and still keep the Sabbath day holy the next day. Scott took Charity and Joy while I took Aaron to 2 of his classmates’ parties. Faith went w/some friends to a church party and Ben left the party he went to with a date after refusing multiple offers of alcohol and smokes—GO Bennie! Jacob was happy to be an armchair quarterback at home!

Jacob made the junior high basketball team last week—so that is fun for him.
Faith was awarded her Young Womanhood Award yesterday in church—once again, I was sooooooo thankful to have been blessed to be there!

Well, I’m sorry I didn’t have any funny stories/adventures for you this week, but my mind and heart are somewhat overcome with gratitude to the Lord. And, I wish all of you to know that I appreciate the way you have touched my life. Happy Week to you all.

LOTS OF LOVE, Me(l) and the Family


OK, one little math dittie for you…how many angels, or legions of angels, does it take to lift a full-size green van-- going 61mph—thru 2 telephone poles, over a couple of trees and then set it down in a patch of gravel about 200 yards later? I don’t know the answer, but I’m hoping I can someday watch the “replay.” I wonder if angels get sore muscles? Will mine need a month off to recover? I don’t know, but I’m grateful!

Melanie Conlin, daughter of Dr. Elaine Bond