Wednesday, May 5, 2010

What God Shows Us

( This is a departure from my usual essays. I wanted to let you  readers know that I do have struggles and hard days, just like anyone else.)


When we have stressful times, how do we react? Do we gripe and complain? How about we tell others to look at feel sorry for us? Or what if we spend time talking to the Lord about our need?

This week has been one of those times when nothing went right. Car trouble on a trip with Hubby seemed to bring us very low. When we reached our destination, a friend called someone he knew at a car dealership and got our car in for repair. That didn’t fix the issue. We found out on the way home that the car still had the original problem.

When we got home late Tuesday evening, we both were exhausted. Wednesday, I tried to get caught up on the lack of sleep/rest from our stay in a motel.

Hubby wasn’t crazy about me driving the car in case it started acting crazy-overheating, engine running too fast, not slowing down when foot removed from the accelerator, motor not going to idle speed. Honestly, I didn’t want to drive it with it subject to all these unusual symptoms. Wednesday, I stayed home and had stress symptoms(IBS).

Thursday, I had plans to pick up items for a bake sale. The other part of my plans was to help price the items. Hubby had an appointment to get the car seen by our mechanic. He was going to drop me off at the church where the ministry has its headquarters. All that changed for us-he got sick. I went on my own and returned safely.

Later that evening, hubby decided to have me call our nephew and his wife who live in Oklahoma. We talked to her. Then Hubby and Nephew talked. Hubby told him about our trip to his boyhood home and what we had seen that reminded Hubby of a time the two of them were together. He told Nephew of having car trouble while we were gone.

Friday, an hour before the Bake Sale, the woman I was working on it with called me. The director strongly suggested we cancel the day’s fundraiser due to predicted storms-the event was to be held for two days, Friday and Saturday.

Later in the day, I decide to e-mail the ministry director with a thought I had about another part of our work. I accessed my account to see a message from the mother of one of our teens who participates in our church’s Drama Ministry. The gist of the message was the daughter was out of state with her school choir and wouldn’t be back until Sunday night. This young girl had a scene in our drama for the next Sunday-two days from now.

Hubby needed some clothes washed. I went to the basement to retrieve the basket, came upstairs, got his clothes, took them to the washer, started the drier with my clothes.

As I came up the stairs, I heard the phone ring. I hurried as best I could. It was Nephew. He had some information his son had shared with him that might have bearing on our car’s problem. And it did.

Our car came with what is called an air dam. It goes across the bottom of the car just below the radiator. As the car moves forward this apparatus catches air and forces it upward into the radiator to cool the engine. A few years ago, I kept hitting it against the concrete things parking places have on the end of parking spaces. The reason I kept doing this is because I can’t judge the distance between the end of my car and the end of the space. Hubby checked under our vehicle. The plastic scoop is completely gone.

Now, God is dealing with me in all of this. We feel we wouldn’t have known about the car overheating if we hadn’t gone out of town. Had the Bake Sale went as planned, I wouldn’t have known until tomorrow about the teen girl going on a school trip. Hubby wouldn’t have heard the phone ring and we wouldn’t have found out about the seemingly simply solution to our car problem.

At this time, I am not angry about the change in my plans for today. I am disappointed in this teen-aged girl, but I know I will forgive her for this. I am sorry that I couldn’t stop this habit of striking concrete parking curbs. We might not have this car issue.

God has been with us through this entire time. What he showed us, I find painful but this is a point of growth.

2 comments:

  1. What would we learn if we didn't encounter some rough patches? I'm glad that God is patient with us as we go along.
    Blessings,
    Karen

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indeed, HE Is faithful and is always there for us. I am glad you have a thankful heart through these trials.
    Hugs, blessings, and prayers,
    andrea

    ReplyDelete

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