“In an ambulance. Accident. Blood.”
That’s it. A cryptic five-word text. Nothing further.
She had traveled a long distance to be with her little grandbabies.
It wasn’t like it was a big deal really. Tour their school; smile often; hug breathlessly; say how much she really loved the drum performance.
The big deal though for the grandbabies of course was that grandma was there.
It was so hard when it came time to leave.
Without warning the windshield imploded with shards of glass penetrating her clothing.
Flecks of blood splattered the dash, a pinkish hue of rain mixed with blood dripped onto the floor of the car.
For what would seem like hours there would be nothing additional, no texts, no phone calls, nothing.
Only those five words.
“In an ambulance. Accident. Blood.”
The impact of the deer with the windshield of the car would leave the animal’s carcass on that mountain pass.
The impact of her words in her cryptic message would reverberate in her mind like sticks on a drum in the days ahead during her recovery.
“In an ambulance. Accident. Blood.”
There are another five words that are absolutely critical to our future given these five words are so important to our past.
If the incessant beat of the drum of crisis is to become a drum roll of celebration these five words are not, however, what is said, but what is not said.
“I have no experience with that.”
These were the five words David said in response to the offer of armor with which to fight Goliath.
“I have no experience with that.”
That’s what David said. But what David was not saying was that what he had experienced, that with which he was familiar, the previous battles in which he had engaged, yes, those experiences would serve him well now.
It is what we have experienced – “ambulance, accident, blood” – that though painful, ugly, devastating, these experiences become our preparation, our drum roll of introduction for the opportunity that comes next.
