The car slammed onto its side, skidding rapidly down the slick grass median, finally coming to a halt in the soggy mud of the ditch between the two sides of a four-lane, divided highway. I was in the driver’s seat.

I didn’t see thousands of little scenes from my life race before my eyes as my Honda Element careened off the road and onto its side. What I saw, but really what I felt, was the real possibility that my life could be over in just one instant.

The officer who showed up at the scene told me that, just the night before, a man had died in a strikingly similar crash in the exact same location. By all accounts, my friend and I should have died, or at least been gravely injured, and yet I escaped with nothing more than a cut on my forehead.

Sheets of rain had been pouring down so hard that I couldn’t see the road, and suddenly, my tires spun on the water, hydroplaning and making the wheel jerk out of my control. I tried to right my course, but the car continued to skid, crossing from the right lane to the left, then down into the ditch. There was nothing I could’ve done to stop it.

Even More Anxious

In the days after the crash, I became even more anxious than I had ever been—and I had been anxious quite frequently. I was afraid of everything. Driving, of course, became an ordeal.

Sitting in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle was a nerve-wracking experience, and I jumped a foot every time the driver in front of us put on his brakes a little too suddenly. I looked both ways five times before timidly crossing any street, whether or not it was a busy intersection. I checked the rearview mirror every couple of seconds to see if the driver behind us was inching a little too close, even when I wasn’t driving.

Getting behind the wheel again myself, especially when it was raining, caused my palms to sweat and my heart to race. I’d wake up repeatedly from the same dream of being inside a car as it collapsed on top of me. Even now, six months later, I’ll have an occasional nightmare in which a steering wheel spins out of control under my hands, sending me veering off the road into a tree.

I’ve always been a high-strung person, totally dependent on my calendar, punctual to a fault, easily upset by anything—or anyone—that might contradict the carefully scheduled plan I’ve set for myself. Though, at first, the crash worsened these qualities, that traumatic experience has slowly reduced my anxiety because I’ve begun to glean a precious life lesson from it: relying on my own plan is no substitute for trusting God.

The Insufficiency of Human Control

Life could so easily have been taken from me in one split-second, and the fact that I remained alive was out of my control. Even people who wear their seatbelts and don’t exceed the speed limit and stop completely at stop signs sometimes die in car accidents. If God decides it’s my time to go, I’m going, and no amount of precaution or careful planning could change that. I have started to reshape my perspective, viewing my daily activities as opportunities to appreciate my blessings, rather than as requirements I must accomplish perfectly in the perfect order.

Speaking against our desire for control, Jesus assured his disciples that “whoever would save his life will lose it” (Mt. 16:25). As Fr. Jacques Philippe puts it in Searching for and Maintaining Peace: “All our spiritual life consists precisely in a long process of reeducation, with a view to regaining that lost confidence, by the grace of the Holy Spirit Who makes us say anew to God: Abba, Father!

Since I’m an over-committed college student who likes to be in control, I become anxious over small inconveniences or a change in plans countless times a day. While my instinct is to express my impatience by complaining or becoming flustered, I’ve tried consciously to take a step back and use the memory of the crash to remind myself that my life is precious, that I almost lost it, and that I’m lucky to have every moment. The distractions and daily crosses that once dominated my perspective don’t seem to be such a big deal anymore.

In St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue, the Lord tells her, “[Man] still doubts … that I am sufficiently strong to help and defend him against his enemies, sufficiently wise to illuminate the eyes of his intelligence or that I have sufficient clemency to want to give him whatever is necessary for his salvation.”

“Man is never assured of obtaining anything, and everything which he holds in his hands can easily slip from his grasp from one day to the next,” says Fr. Philippe. I could so easily have died, but having hydroplaned into that ditch reminds me that God has a plan for me and that He has His guiding hand over everything in my life, even if it ends tomorrow.