Faith and Fear

“Faith and fear both demand that you believe in something you cannot see. You choose.”- Bob Proctor

On Friday morning, May 16, 2025, around 7 a.m., after the sun rose but before the dew dried, a woman driving a large pickup truck swerved into our lane and hit the Dodge SUV I was riding in, flipping it upside down and trapping all four of us inside. We were on a work trip.

It was my third Friday on the job, the full second week of work, and I had helped coordinate a volunteer event to Montegut, La., a southern coastal town of about 1,500 people and (maybe) lots of alligators. There were seven of us going – three in one SUV, four in the other, and it was an early morning trip. We met at the office at 5:30 a.m. to make the trek down to the marshes of Louisiana to help plant sea grass with Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. It was a beautiful morning and as we drove, we all took a minute to appreciate the sunrise and each other.

My biggest fear that morning before I left the house was getting too close to an alligator. I never thought I would be upside down struggling to breathe with every airbag deployed around me.

I’m going to pause for a moment to let you all know that what I’m about to write could trigger anyone who has been in a traumatic car accident or lost someone in one. I am not going to name where I work or the other people in the car because this event was also very traumatic for them, and it’s their story to tell. There were two women in that car, me and my co-worker, and two men, one is my co-worker, and one is a client from our organization. But I am going to share with you my perspective of what I am learning as I navigate the aftermath of this wreck.

I saw the truck barreling towards us seconds before it slammed into the driver’s side. What happened next felt like something out of a movie. When the car flipped, it was like our lives were in slow motion and everything turned a cloudy shade of white. I was sitting in the passenger seat and thankfully my seatbelt held me in. I screamed. I couldn’t stop screaming and tried to open the sunroof. I had my hand on my cellphone but couldn’t figure out how to dial 911 until I remembered that I could asked Siri for help. There were shoes in my face and feet in those shoes, my co-worker was behind me trying to kick to get out. And then I saw the light as the driver of our vehicle, kicked the door open, and we unbuckled, fell and crawled out.

Except one of us. The client in the back seat. The fourth passenger. Our driver went back to pull him out of the car. He is an older gentleman who was wearing a red flannel shirt, jeans and a Yankees baseball cap. The accident happened across the street from a church and right before we were hit, I looked back at him and saw him making the sign of the cross as we passed that church.

The other woman and I stumbled over to the grass, away from the upside-down SUV, and we checked ourselves to make sure we were OK. Our chests hurt and our heads hurt. Her neck hurt and she sat down on the grass. Despite my nose bleeding, we didn’t see any other blood on us. I was still trying to get in touch with 911, but the operator couldn’t hear me because we were in the middle of nowhere with spotty cell service. I couldn’t give her much information because I didn’t know what road we were on. I relied on the kindness of strangers, like the kindergarten teacher on her way to work who stopped after she saw the accident and stood next me as I tried to understand what to do next. There was on older man in a white pick-up truck with sweat beading on his forehead who checked on us. It wasn’t even 7:15 a.m. and it was already hot and humid. I called my boss, my boss’s boss, my husband, and my sister. I watched as paramedics and firefighters arrived and got our client out of the car, onto a backboard and into an ambulance. His head was bleeding through the bandages they applied, and I just kept asking them if he was going to be OK.

The helicopter arrived as our other three co-workers did. They hugged us and we all watched the helicopter land at that church’s parking lot across the street, transporting our client from the ambulance to the helicopter and heading to a New Orleans trauma center.

My two co-workers who were in the car with me were brought by ambulance to the nearest hospital, and I stood there waiting for my husband, trying to take deep breaths in and slower breaths out, tapping into the daily meditation tools I had been using. I reached around my back to scratch an itch and discovered that a portion of my shirt was burned through. A paramedic asked me to take my blood pressure. It was high. Really high.

He told me I was going to the hospital. I opened up my phone to text my husband, and on my screen was the intention I had set for that day – “trust in HIM.”

For the last 40 days, I have set an intention every morning on my phone through the app Insight Timer to help me stay focused on what matters. In green writing it says, “Today I will…” And then I fill in the rest. My favorites are:

“My breath is my anchor. My anchor my breath.”

“Be where my feet are.”

“Trust the process.”

And “Trust in HIM.”

I have been going through a spiritual journey over the last few years. During that time, I have felt lighter, things have seemed clearer, and I was more comfortable taking leaps of faith, guided by an invisible string. My kids are getting older and don’t need me as much, and I’ve started a new job that is very mission based and purposeful. I felt called to do the work. And I had never felt this nudge in my life before. I always thought I was in control and never really relied on spirituality for anything other than a talking point.

I have developed a deep faith in a power higher than me, and I have been leaning into that lately. So that morning, I set my intention and packed my bag for a trip to the marsh that I never made.

There are two complete feelings that I’m holding as I write this from my kitchen table Saturday night – less than 36 hours after the accident – as the adrenaline is leaving my body and the pain of the trauma I experienced is setting up shop.

I’m grateful.

And.

I’m terrified.

I have been trying to process both of those emotions all day. I have been spending lots of time with my family and checking up on our client who is still in ICU. When I close my eyes, I can see the smoke from the airbags and feel the terror of being upside down, thinking that I was going to die in that claustrophobic state. I can still taste the dust from the airbags, and I can hear myself screaming for my co-worker to get me out.

I have never been so scared in my life. My insides feel like the mangled SUV, and I have spent a lot of time the last few days trying to understand why I’m still here and what my purpose is. I don’t feel clarity. I feel confusion. And fear. And hypervigilance, and I want everyone I love to wrap themselves in bubble wrap and stay really close to me forever.

I could go on for hours about this or I could simply, “Trust in HIM.”

I choose to trust.

May 17, 2025