Incredible Story of Yad Hashem

This past week's Parsha told us regarding Makat Dever (the plague of pestilence):

...הנה יד ה' הויה

This story that happened to my wife this past Friday is just too incredible for me not to blog about. In it, it is impossible for me not to see the Yad Hashem both in His punishment and His salvation. I call it a major slap on the wrist.

Let me preface the story by saying that like many women (shielding the tomatoes being thrown at me), my wife's sense of direction is not perfect, to put it mildly. Let me further preface it by saying that my ability to pay bills on time is also not perfect, to put it mildly.

Here's what happened. My wife and another colleague went to a conference at a major convention center to where my wife has never driven herself before. On her way home, she got directions from the convention center who told her to go on an expressway that I would not have taken, but would have gotten her home relatively fast. As my wife was headed toward that route, she called me on the cell phone to ask me if she should take it or not. I said OK, since she was headed toward it anyways. She took it - but going the wrong direction. While going the wrong direction, she managed to get into the express lanes of this particular highway (I still don't know why). She then was going under an overpass, and as soon as she got passed the overpass...

WHAM!

...a tire flew out diagonally from the sky (I'm not kidding - possibly from a passing car or truck overhead) and hit the top of my wife's car, denting the top of it and shattering the front windshield with a spider-web type breakage. There was glass all over the passenger's lap, but Baruch Hashem, no one was even slightly injured. It was a major Ness Min Hashamayim (which is where the tire seemed to come from too). All this happened while I was on the phone trying to help her get home.

So far, we have 5 weird things happening:

1. A route that should not have been taken
2. Going the wrong direction on that route
3. Going in the express lanes of that route
4. A tire coming out of nowhere that happens to hit my wife's car directly on top
5. Not a scratch to either driver or passenger, despite considerable damage

But wait, it gets stranger.

Shaken up, my wife pulls over to the shoulder and calls the police, who say they will be there shortly. I drive out to where my wife is, which took a good 45 minutes to an hour, as I was far away, and I kept passing her up since she barely knew where she was and I couldn't believe that she was in the express lanes. When I finally got there, the police had still not arrived. We decided to just leave (the police had told my wife earlier that no police report was necessary as no other vehicle was involved - at least that she saw).

We took side streets home as the car was drivable, but we didn't want to go too fast since the wind would have knocked more glass into the car. We dropped off the other passenger at home and took the car to the body shop.

REWIND

Rewind this story to Friday, January 20th at 1:00 AM (i.e. late Thursday night). At this time, I am doing online banking. I see we have an old bill from our car insurance and a second notice saying that they will cancel the policy by a certain date if we don't pay it. I see that it's past 5 days from now, so I pay it through my online banking bill-pay feature of my bank. What I failed to realize is that since it was past midnight, the bill would not be sent out until the next business day, which was Monday, January 23rd - and from then, it takes 5 business days, so even if you include Monday, that comes out to Friday, January 27th.

The date the policy would be canceled is midnight - Thursday night.

FAST FORWARD

When we both arrived at the body shop, my wife hands me the phone. It's our insurance agent. He told me that our policy canceled last night. I couldn't believe it. (Baruch Hashem, I was later told that if the check is in the mail, it probably is still covered.)

The moral of the story is not to leave directions to men and paying bills to women (although, that's probably not a bad moral either). The moral that I got out of it is that the Yad Hashem is everywhere, and that when He wants to punish, He will find ways to do so. And, by the same token, when He wants to save, He will find ways to do so.

My wife and I are currently doing a Heshbon Hanefesh after this incident. Any moral support in the comments would be appreciated.