You Never Know How Life Will Work Out
Dr. Monica Young Andrews
Chaplain Doctor at Divine Order Network - Spirnancial Partners in Shine
You know, you never know how life is going to work out.
Real funny.
I told you I went to Hampton. I told you that I got accepted there. That was the only school I ever applied to, and I went there. When I got through that, I spent my four-and-a-half years there. Being a computer science major, it’s interesting because of my graduation. I went four and a half years but I never went to summer school. I had to come back and do a semester the year I was supposed to graduate and walk, in May of 1987. I actually came back and did … I finished December of 1987.
That summer, I had a car accident.
A car hit me on my way to work. Just la, la la, la la, early in the morning. I would get up early and go outside because I’m not about that rush hour traffic. I’m just driving along on my way to my college classes.
I’m going through the light, and this car comes and boom, hits me.
He ran a red light and hit me. I spin all off, I hit a lamppost. Whoo.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, there was not somebody sitting in that passenger seat.
If there was, then that person would not have made it, most likely. When I looked, the door on the other side, it was all the way into the console. It was pushed in. You understand that’s how hard he hit. It was my first accident like that. Being hit, with another car involved. I have to say this, because I did go off.
My very first car I had was a Volkswagen. You know, the little Beetle Volkswagen? Bug, Beetle, whatever it was. I was driving down at Hampton actually … No, I was driving down to Richmond, doing a trial run before I went to school. Before I even went, this was summer before my freshman year, and the axle broke in that car.
You know what?
We went off the road.
I thought we were gone.
Goners, right?
I’m driving the car and I’m like, whoa. I couldn’t steer it anymore. Trying to steer, I went to stitch lanes. I am a speeder, I did speed. I can be honest about that. We go off the side of the road, and then it’s like, oh snap!
We go off, and it goes and flips!
Flips and flips. You know, Volkswagen has those round tops. Round tops, they flip more. The windshield had popped out. Those days, you didn’t wear seatbelts. It wasn’t mandatory to wear seatbelts.
I ended up in the lap of the person that was in the passenger side.
I was sitting in his lap. He pushed me so I could get up and get out of the windshield. That’s crazy, right? That was the first, my very first accident.
The accident that happened the summer before my senior semester, that’s the one that was like, wow. It actually paid me some money. Paid me enough money to be able to do some things when I graduated. What was real crazy was, I ended up, because of what happened and just going through everything, I ended up coming back to school when I had a cast. Yes, I came back to school. I thought I was going to, my last semester, my party, you know. Last ones in school, in college, are the fun years. My “fun year” I had a cast, y’all. The great thing about it is, when I was able to get the house the following year. 1988 was when I purchased a house, which is when I went back to walk.
When I graduated, I had a cast.
So guess what I got to do? See, it’s funny how things work out. Jesse Jackson actually was speaking at our graduation that year.
I got to sit on the stage with Jesse Jackson because there was no way I was going to be able to march and walk up there and be in the marching line to come and get that and walk-up with that cast on.