Right now, Daniel and I are in Birmingham, Alabama for the first of five weddings we will be attending this year. Daniel’s brother John is getting married on Saturday. He was best man in our wedding last year, and now Daniel is best man in his.

We had a hard time getting out the door on Wednesday for our first married road trip, and our goal of leaving home at 3 p.m. turned into 4:30 p.m. because of circumstances beyond our control (story of our lives), so we got on the road with the GPS telling us we would reach our destination at 4:48 a.m. (We had thought about stopping somewhere halfway for the night, but figured we might as well drive straight through and save ourselves 50 bucks.) We packed sandwiches and snacks for the car so that we could minimize stops, and we were on our way.

Daniel drove most of the way himself, not asking me to take over at all until around midnight, when I drove for an hour and a half. I took a turn again at 3:20 a.m. and drove until a little after 4 just so that Daniel could have a quick nap… and at 3:45 while I was driving on a long stretch of empty highway in Alabama, an unidentified sitting object appeared suddenly in my headlights in the middle of my lane. It was large and dark, and it was obviously dark outside, plus the pavement was black, so I didn’t see this object until it was directly in front of me. Driving at 70 mph (that was actually the speed limit- I wasn’t speeding!), I had just enough time to swerve into the left lane in an attempt to avoid it. Whatever it was still hit the front right corner of my car, and hit loudly. It did not sound good. Sure enough, when we pulled over to look at the car at the next exit, the entire right side of my front bumper was cracked and pieces of the fiberglass were completely gone. What was left is now hanging to flap in the wind. If we were worried about money before we left, (who doesn’t worry about money, right?) we are even more now. Auto body work is always expensive, and this definitely needs to be fixed.

Thank God, though, that it was not worse than it was. I am convinced that if there had been another car on the road driving next to me and I hadn’t been able to swerve into the other lane, we could have been hurt. I still have no idea what that object was.

Regardless of our worries, though, we got to John’s apartment at a little before 5 a.m., which was actually 4 a.m. Alabama time– and we are here to celebrate! Daniel’s brother is getting married and we are gaining a wonderful new member of the family. We are so very, very happy for them. I’m sure it will be a beautiful wedding.

We will be driving home on Sunday, hopefully this time without incident… and we’re trying very hard to trust in our God to provide for us. Take care, everyone.