I woke up in a daze. 

I could hear the ignition running with a soft, eerie squeal. The airbag deflated on my chest in front of me. My heart began pounding, my chest clenching from the blow.

What just happened? Where am I? Oh, God. Am I dead?

I peered through the windshield.

Sheer panic overwhelmed me.

Oh, God. Please. Did I hurt someone? What did I hit?

Ironically my cellphone was completely intact, resting in perfect place in the cup holder beside me. I grabbed it and quickly opened my car door.

I untangled myself from the wreckage surrounding me and escaped my driver’s seat. 

Oh, God. Oh, God.

My mind was like a record on repeat.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Thank you, God. 

My feet hit the pavement. An electric cord scrambling across the road in front of me.

“Are you OK?” I heard a man’s voice from across the street.

I grabbed my chest. Breathing frantically.

“I . . . I . . . I think so.”

As the paramedics began to explain to me what had happened, I began to gather my senses. 

Still in complete shock. 

Absolute complete shock. 

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I just can’t believe this happened to me. I just can’t. I’m so, so sorry.”

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God bless those EMTs and police officers. They showed me so much grace that I didn’t deserve. They noticed my work badge, the hospital logo on my jacket. They consoled me and told me how much they understood and have been in those same situations. 

But had they?

I had just gotten off from working a 12-hour night shift at the hospital. My car completely hurled into an electric pole. 

Sleeping and driving. 

It seems like such a careless motive. 

You should know better, Diana. How reckless of you. You should have had complete control. You are in control. How could you let this happen?

Did I let this happen?

The truth is, no. 

My body shut down. Blacked out. It had had enough. And there was no coming to. 

Was it from the exhaustion of two months prior?  Still coping with my 4-year-old’s crippling diagnosis. My heart ripped from my chest. My daughter disappearing before my eyes.

Was it from working nightshift? I’d worked so many. 

No.

There’s not a shift that could compare to this type of exhaustion. I hadn’t truthfully slept in months. How could I? Worry and fear consumed me. 

I was in control.

But my daughter was sick. Only this time, Mommy couldn’t kiss it better. 

I was in control.

I slept by her side every night, curled up next to her little body, holding her, resting my hands on her limbs through the night to sense a jerk, a trimmer, another seizure. 

I was in control.

My eyes wide open while she slept so peacefully. Praying over her. Watching her. Pleading with God. Replaying the events over and over in my head. 

Every night since she had come home from the hospital, I never left her side. 

My husband urged me to please come to bed. It will be OK. She’s in God’s hands. She is getting better. She’s going to be fine. 

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But I simply couldn’t. I could not let go. 

I was in control.

Control was spiraling out of my hands. 

I had surrendered so much to God during those nights in the hospital with her. Those long, gut-wrenching nights. With no answers. Monitors beeping.

Signing her life away at every procedure. Accepting the risks. Accepting the outcomes. Accepting the diagnosis. Accepting the unknown.

I surrendered so much . . .

Or so I had thought.

The car accident was a wake-up call. 

God spared my life.

He spared others’ lives that could have been involved. Thank God, there wasn’t.

He spared me. My family needed me. My husband, my children—they needed me.

But they needed me whole. They needed me healthy and rested. They needed me strong in the promises of God. Not wavering to my own fears and worries.

God asked me to surrender so much more to him that day. So much more that I hadn’t even grasped onto yet.

The control I thought I had a grip on, slipped so effortlessly from my grasp that morning when I escaped from that wreckage. 

The final release of all control I held onto. It was all in His hands now. 

God woke me up that morning. He was protecting me all along.

He woke me up and showed me how much He really held me. And how much I hadn’t surrendered to Him. 

The tug of war was over. Every part of my life was in complete surrender to my Father.