The main thing I remember is fear. Not the fear you feel when you see a spider and not the kind you feel when you watch a scary movie. It was a fear of serious injury. It was a fear of brain damage. It was a fear of my best friend sitting next to me getting hurt. It was the fear of dying. I felt a fear that I could never adequately put into words.

Recently my car got smashed into by another's. I knew she wasn't going to stop. I knew the other driver was going to hit me but there was absolutely nothing I could do. It was a feeling of shear terror and helplessness. I didn't see her hit me. But I felt it. I felt the strongest impact of my life as another vehicle slammed into my driver's door and the airbags engaged.

"Don't let go of the wheel, don't let go," I remember saying over and over to myself. I don't think any of our friends really grasps the way my roommate and I felt in those moments. I don't know if people realize I genuinely thought I was about to die. Once my car finally stopped on the sidewalk by a gas station, I verbally said "Thank you, God."

I looked through my windshield to see two men coming to help us. I looked over at my roommate in gratefulness that she too had no physical injury. What had even just happened? I tried to open my door but it was too smashed in to open on my own. The two men at the gas station pried it open and I literally fell out of the car into their arms in tears. I was alive. And I had never in my life been so thankful to have human touch and grasp the fact that I was here. I was alive.

Coming home was a relief. Only then could I really even try to begin to process what had occurred. "What if I had been there just 2 seconds sooner, was going 5 mph faster, etc" every "what if" question ran through my mind. I remember laying in my bed crying as a verbally said over and over "it was so scary, it was so scary." But as I looked up at myself in my mirror across the room I saw myself.

I saw myself, unharmed. I felt my arms which held the steering wheel as my whole body and car were being jerked around as the other car hit. I felt my legs that allowed me to walk away from the accident. And I felt my heart. I felt my heart beating as I thought of my mom, my dad, my brothers, everyone and everything in my life that made it so beautiful. I felt my body in its aliveness and cried out to God in thanksgiving that I was alive right here, right now.

I sit here now and feel the fear all over again as I replay the accident in my head over and over again. I can still smell the scent of the airbags coming out so vividly. That smell is so overwhelming, even now. Sometimes closing my eyes is scary because all I can see is the accident. When I lie down, I feel getting hit again. In moments I have to myself, it replays in my head and I can still feel the impact airbags releasing onto my side.

But the most important thing I feel is alive. I realized that no matter how good of a driver you are, wrecks can still happen. Sometimes other drivers are just negligent. All that matters now is that everyone in the wreck is safe. So thanks be to God that the day of the crash was not our last day. But I can assure you that it's a day I will never forget.