Nancy Moser is the award-winning author of over twenty inspirational novels. Her genres include contemporary stories including John 3:16 and Time Lottery, and historical novels of real women-of-history including Just Jane (Jane Austen) and Washington's Lady (Martha Washington). Her newest historical novels are Masquerade and An Unlikely Suitor. Nancy and her husband Mark live in the Midwest. She’s earned a degree in architecture, traveled extensively in Europe, and has performed in numerous theaters, symphonies, and choirs. She gives Sister Circle Seminars around the country, helping women identify their gifts as they celebrate their sisterhood. She is a fan of anything antique—humans included. Find out more at www.nancymoser.com and www.sistercircles.com. and her historical blog: http://footnotesfromhistory.blogspot.com/

Sometimes in hindsight comes a revelation.

My husband and I were driving home after attending an out-of-town football game, a four-hour drive. In the car were our newlywed daughter and her husband. The day had been full and fun with a visit to my parents, tailgating, and the excitement of college football.

It was dark. The traffic was heavy on the four-lane highway. Cars in front of us, an SUV driving close behind.

And then, as my husband got into the left lane to drive around a semi, we saw it. A dead deer lying in our lane.

A semi on our right, a ditch on our left . . . we had nowhere to go but straight ahead.

My husband braced his hands on the steering wheel. “Hold on!”

I will never forget the awful sound of running over that dead animal. The thud of the tires, the rocking of our car as it raced over the hefty obstacle at sixty-five miles an hour.

Somehow we stayed on the road, and stayed in our lane. But then we heard a part of the car dragging. We drove five miles to the next town, wary of seeing the damage.

The plastic under-bumper of our car was dragging, and the lining of the front wheel-well was completely gone. But that was it. We bought some duct tape and taped the bumper in place for the rest of the trip. We joked nervously about how lucky we’d been.

Lucky. Right.

We didn’t get home until nearly 11 p.m., and fell right into bed. But during the night my husband awoke in a cold sweat. I wasn’t sleeping well either.

We always think accidents happen to other people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. But this time it had happened to us.

In these early morning hours the could-have-beens rushed toward us, taking us captive. We could have crashed into the semi. We could have crashed into the ditch. We could have rolled the car. We could have gone airborne. The SUV driving behind us could have run into us—or suffered its own accident. Our daughter and her husband, who had just talked about starting a family, could have lost their lives. We all could have. In the matter of a few seconds, a happy family outing could have become a family tragedy.

But it didn’t.

As hard as the what-ifs were to take, the knowledge that we were alive and unscathed was just as sobering—and luck had nothing to do with it.

We both thanked God over and over and over. Yet mere thanks didn’t seem to be enough. Why were we saved when people die in accidents every day?

I wish I could say we discovered the answer to that question, but we didn’t. We haven’t. We only know—now, more than ever—that life is precious, tenuous, and often unexplainable. But since we do have these days that might not have been ours but for a second here or an inch there, we keep thanking God and asking Him to help us be worthy of this grace, for we are sinners and have done nothing to deserve being saved.

And yet He saved us . . .

Every day He saves us—He saves you—in a thousand ways.

As this new year begins think on that. And never take it for granted.