Something Stronger Than Two Buses
I was called to Southeast Asia the day I was hit by two buses. You can imagine, then, how much it took for me to leave.
A year after it happened, I wrote the story like this:
When I was in Asia, I got hit by two buses.
The details are mostly irrelevant, though everyone wants to hear them. A careless bus driver and a poorly timed left-hand turn catapulted my motorbike into the front of an oncoming bus. For a terrifying moment, I was caught between two forces strong enough to crush me. Neither of them stopped.
I found myself sprawled on the pavement—tires spinning, arm oozing, shoulder aching. My survival instinct barked orders: “Get up. Get out of the street. More traffic is coming.”
I limped to the side of the road and found myself outside an open-air coffee shop— every local out of their seat, talking in strange, urgent tones. Someone offered me a cup of lukewarm green tea. My shaking hands fumbled a cheap Nokia phone, my only connection to an English speaker.
Before long, familiar faces appeared on the scene. Emergency vehicles are a first-world luxury, but a teammate helped me into a taxi. In a two-bed clinic, I ground my teeth and chewed my lip to keep from crying the name of Jesus with every movement of my arm. I hope I have freedom of speech when I break my next bone.
I lay awake that night—arm velcroed across my chest, ice pack wedged into my t-shirt collar, shoulder pounding with every heartbeat.
“God, where were you today while I was caught between two buses?”
The scene flashed into my mind like lightning—all blaring horns and white metal. I was between two buses again, but I wasn’t alone. This time I saw strong arms stretched wide, holding the buses apart, keeping me safe.
“I’m a Father and I love to protect. It’s who I am. Love always protects.”
My breaths grew deeper and I felt my heart unfold in the silence, soaking up love’s furious protection.
“But there was a day when mankind’s sin and the consequences of that sin were barreling toward each other, and my Only Begotten Son chose to put Himself in the middle. That day, I didn’t protect Him. I didn’t protect him! I did it for you and I did it for these people, and they’ve never had a chance to hear.”
I lay there for a long time, listening to the air condition drip. My heart was all surrender. My only answer was “yes.”
When I wake up on rainy mornings, my collarbone still aches with the truth I learned two summers ago between those buses in Asia. When I stretch, I can never straighten my right arm quite the way I could before. But I have stronger reminders of that hot day in my future home. They come when my prayers catch in my throat, because my ache for these people to know Jesus makes it hard to breathe. They come when I rearrange my future, because I long to nurture unreached people groups even more than I want a family of my own. They come every time I raise my hands in worship and feel the twinging reminder that 3 billion people can’t. These reminders come and they don’t stop, and I don’t want them to. Because there is another One who bears wounds of longing, holy injuries with scars that don’t fade. There is One who was crushed while they were protected, and there were no strong arms to fight for Him, no lifeline in His desperation, no friend when His courage failed, no Savior’s name to cry in His pain.
So come—come lace fingers with these nail-pierced hands and find they hold all you need. Follow His gaze to the ends of the earth and see how they take His breath away. Risk breaking your bones and your heart, and tell me if you regret it. Because every time something breaks, there are strong arms making a safe space, and there are Father-eyes that never look away.
Sometimes I look back on my younger self and think of all she didn’t know—all the slow and painful things she was about to learn. But when I read her words now, I see she was more of a prophet than she realized, not at all ignorant of what could go wrong.
If I could look her in the eyes, I’d tell her I don’t regret it. There were so many more broken things than she expected, but she made good on her promise that I would find a safe space—that I would see my Father’s unwavering gaze all over again.
When I ask Jesus what He sees, He shows me our hands still intertwined—both pierced by the nails of betrayal, both convinced that every risk was worthwhile.
Because there is something in me that is stronger than two buses. Someone, to be more precise. He raised up the broken body of a Man who was crushed between the world’s sin and its consequences. He was the voice that called Jesus out of the grave. He was the voice that told me to get up the day I lay sprawled and oozing on the pavement. He was the day I got back on my motorbike, testing my once-broken body to see if it could bear weight again.
He is the ache in my heart now that says to get up and do it again.