Ivan: Hi all! Happy Wednesday. This post will deal with events going back to the moment of the accident over two years ago, but first a brief update from the present: Grace is continuing to work with her new doctor at Stanford. Her doctor is gathering more information and working on putting together what we hope will be a viable treatment plan. Thank you for continuing to pray for us!

Now, for the main part of this post. The “me” in the title refers to Grace, and “Part 2” refers to our earlier post, in which we introduced a key character in our accident narrative: the driver who ran a red light on Saturday, December 3, 2016, and changed our lives forever.

I was not with Grace that afternoon as she waited for her crosswalk light to turn green and proceeded to step into the crosswalk to cross Magnolia Avenue in Riverside, CA. She had planned to get some food at Subway before meeting me to go a Christmas concert where she would play later that evening. When her light turned green, Grace took a few steps into the crosswalk as Mr. Driver (not his real name) failed to stop his car at his red light.

The information we have regarding this accident comes from video footage from a traffic camera at that intersection. This camera recorded the fact that, at the moment of impact, Grace’s head crashed through the car’s windshield, giving her a skull fracture at the back of her head; her body landed on the hood of the car. Mr. Driver stopped for a few seconds, moved his car forward a few yards, then braked so that Grace’s body fell on the road. Then he pulled over to the curb, where the police and paramedics eventually found him.

Grace’s accident was not a hit and run.

The Riverside Police Department was able to give me copies of Mr. Driver’s information. Grace and I know his name and where he lived at the time. Presumably, he has access to Grace’s information. We have never once heard from him since the time of the accident, even though he lived around the corner from our apartment complex.

In the forthcoming days and weeks I learned from a police detective investigating our case that, in the state of California, drivers who hit pedestrians are not charged criminally unless the pedestrian dies. Therefore, despite the severity of Grace’s injuries and the irreparable damage done to her quality of life, Mr. Driver has only been financially and legally accountable for his driver insurance’s minimal policy limit, and perhaps a ticket for running a red light.

God has been gracious to us in the time since the accident. He has always provided for our needs, not least through the tangible actions of many people who have sacrificially given of themselves to help us. Grace and I thank God for all of you!

At the same time, the fact remains that our accident serves to demonstrate how hope for ultimate justice should not be placed in human institutions. We are all flawed; our attempts at establishing a just society are also flawed. Yet God’s grace remains.

It would be an endless undertaking to enumerate the ways in which God makes His love and unmerited blessings known to us. Among these, Grace and I are thankful that God has chosen to allow Grace more time on earth; that He has given us family and friends who have more than supported us throughout our journey; that He brought into our lives attorneys who worked with us selflessly and patiently; that He himself never changes.

Our hope and prayer is that those of us who know God will continue to seek Him more and more through whatever He chooses to send our way, and that those who do not yet know Him would come to understand who He is and what He has done. Mr. Driver, Grace and I pray these things for you.

In the words of our Lord Jesus: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”