Love from Traffic School

I'm going to be totally open with you.  I spent the day in traffic school today, and I don't mind telling you I'm a bit traumatized now.  It felt like an 8-hour horror show, mixed in with a fear of driving because-"they'll-get-you-with-a-ticket-no-matter-what." I sat there with 30 other people, our mouths agape, feeling terrible about ourselves and wondering if we should buy bus passes.  We were shown videos of horrible accidents including decapitations, life cripplings, and bloody deaths of teenagers and children.  We saw cars fly off cliffs, cars burst into flames against trees, cars run  into one another in huge pile-ups, and children and animals die because of traffic infractions like talking on cellphones and driving without seat belts.  I'm telling you, when it came time for lunch break, nobody could move.  We sat there like 30 stunned and shocked sparrows on an electrified wire.  I sat next to a young girl tattooed and pierced all over who had a DUI and it was costing her $23,000.00.  The girl's pierced face is still before me, and I'm thinking it will take her a very long time to pay off that DUI.  Such a precious girl, so cherished by Jesus, and  yet she made a mistake that will affect the rest of her life.  Thank the Lord, she didn't kill or injure anyone, and God, in His mercy, heard her prayers and helped her through the lengthy process and financial hardship.  Most of us in the class had tickets for things like rolling stops, red lights, speeding, cell phones, and one guy for making a U-turn in the middle of the block.  We weren't exactly what you'd call criminals, but we sat there in our guilt and shame wondering how we could make this a positive experience.  I decided to make it a learning experience and so I took notes as though I were in a college class.  (Ask me anything.)  By the end of the day we were all completely spent, exhausted, fried.  You should have seen the older people.  They could barely stand up.  It had been a harrowing day of looking at the reality of driving with stress the horrors on the road.  When we finally signed out and received our little certificates of completion we filed out like silent lambs to the slaughter.   I could hardly drive home.  We had been programmed to think we'd do something wrong and get pulled over, and we'd have no way out of it, even if we were right.  I had to go before the Lord in the Throne Room with 2 Peter 1:2-4:  "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue..."  Ah yes,this verse too-- "happy is the person who finds wisdom and gains understanding..."  (Prov. 3:13).