The Insignificant Time I Learned Something Super Significant

One of my favorite aspects about life is how we learn the most significant lessons through simple tasks. I think we as humans believe that we only learn through huge life changing experiences and I have found that the simplest of times brings the greatest lessons.

A few weeks ago, I was house sitting....and dog sitting....and cat sitting.....and goat sitting. It was a blast!!! Along with house sitting, the family asked me to take them to the airport and pick them up. I agreed, I do enjoy driving (except not in LA) and I was willing to help them out. Taking them to the airport was no problem--they picked me up at OHMYGOSH-thirty and I drove their car home. However, I was little more worried about driving to and around LAX. I had picked a family up from the airport last month and it went smoothly but LAX is like the worst airport in the universe. To say I wasn't really looking forward to it is a huge understatement.

Well, on that night, I inhaled some diet coke to stay awake and I checked google maps

at 8 PM. My ETA to drive 30 something miles was about 54 minutes, with a six minute delay due to construction traffic. I took care of the dogs one last time, hopped into their large SUV, and headed to LAX, at like 9:15 pm. to pick them up at 10:30.

If you know me...you know how often I drive down to LA. I've gone down the 405 freeway at least once a week during every summer to go to the beach or the temple. I know how to get there backwards and forwards. But for some reason, I set myself up in their car with my headphones and google maps going. I remember thinking that it was kind of silly, as I knew the exits by heart--and my phone was at 40%. But I kept my GPS on.

(Now this part will only make sense if you live in Valencia, so bear with me if you don't...)

Normally, I would take the McBean freeway entrance, but as I was on Arroyo Park, I decided to turn right instead of left on McBean. I thought it was weird that turned there but the thought came that maybe it was faster to go one exit further away from LA and take Valencia instead of McBean (which literally makes no sense). As I was getting ready to enter the freeway on Valencia, I looked and saw that traffic was at a standstill and then I realized that google maps yelled at me to get on the "Old Road" instead of the freeway. I made the quickest lane change ever and made a quick decision to get on the Old Road.

Now, the Old Road is well what it sounds like--the "freeway" or highway back before Valencia was all settled. So I'm taking the Old Road and I look over at the freeway and traffic is completely stopped. Then I look again and I noticed a ton of firefighters, fire trucks and at least a dozen police cars. Now, I'm kinda freaking out. I called my dad and he started looking things up. At 8:30 PM that night, "Diesel fuel...spewed out of a truck and onto a portion of the southbound freeway." Because of this spill, the 5 freeway was completely shut down. I couldn't believe my "luck." I was in shock. If I had gotten onto the 5 freeway, I would have been completely stuck and late to the airport. Instead, I got onto the freeway almost at the 405 and made it down in plenty of time to LAX.

Say what you will. Call it luck. Call it an awesome GPS. Call it a coincidence. But I know that it wasn't like that. It wasn't luck, it wasn't GPS and it definitely wasn't a coincidence. God knew that it was important to me to make it to LAX on time and in good spirits. He knew that I would have panicked and stressed out all the way to LA. He knew that the family I was picking up would have been tired and possibly a little cranky that I was late. He knew all of that. And the best part about it was that the Spirit was prompting me to go to the Valencia on ramp and take the Old Road. It was not my GPS at first---it was the Holy Ghost. What was even more awesome was we had the missionaries over earlier that night. The lesson they shared with us was a promise to listen to the Holy Ghost. I smiled the rest of the night and thanked my Heavenly Father out loud for watching over me. I know that God lives and loves each of us. He is aware of us and our individual circumstances. He only wants what's best for us.