The protecting power of prayer

I don't know where the last two weeks went. School finished up one of them and the other was spent visiting family and friends. Jacob was very sweet to let me spend some quality time with my family while he packed out. He met me in Utah late Saturday night and after my brother's baby blessing on Sunday, we made our start for Texas. Since we got a late start (2 p.m.) we decided that we could drive through the night and make it there by afternoon on Monday. As we were driving I kept thinking, "I'm not taking this way home". Then I remembered its not a vacation and that we were only going one way this time. It still feels surreal.

Everything went smoothly until the last 20 miles. Jacob had been driving when I started to hear a different sound. We switched drivers and the noise got stronger and a little louder. I asked him about it and he said it was the bearings in our small tow along trailer and he would fix it later that night. I drove another 20 minutes at 80 mph and then brought up the noise again. I had thought it was coming from the muffler on the van so I pulled off the freeway. Jacob got out and inspected the trailer when he came to me and said, "pull off to the side very slowly and come look at this." I did and got out. The trailer tire looked like the picture.
All of the lug nuts were gone. Again very slowly we drove off the small space between the freeway and the access road and by then all the studs were gone. We were close to Betsy's and only 4 miles from a trailer store. Betsy picked me and the kids up, Nate brought out some tools and within 45 minutes Jacob was "home" too.

We know how bad this could have been. We could have lost the tire at a high speed, ruined the trailer, possibly have wrecked, or even stated a fire. We know that we were protected and blessed. We always start every road trip with a prayer and we have never had anything major happen. I'm grateful for the Lord's hand in everything.