The Car Dilemma

We were driving home from a nice walk at a nature center today.  We were one exit away.  Less than three miles from home when I decided to exit early, pull into a parking lot, turn off the car, and just sit there.  Why?  You might ask.  Because I had a point to prove.

Sometimes we are on a journey.  We have a purpose, a destination, a goal.  But as humans, we also are very stubborn.  We want to do things OUR way.  Or we just don't feel like being on that journey any more.  And sometimes that means pulling off the highway, pulling into a parking lot, turning off the car, and just sitting there.  We no longer are moving towards our destination.  We have halted our journey. 

I had a choice to make while sitting in that parking lot.  I could try to push the car the rest of the way home.  I mean, I didn't feel like driving any more.  I could have gotten out of the car and tried with all my might to push the car three miles to our home.  That would cause me to exert quite a bit of effort.  Of course I would get some pretty good exercise, but it would take much longer to get home than if I had just turned the key and drove home.  

I could have also just refused to budge.  I could sit there for days.  I would get closer to my destination if I at least pushed the car.  But in this case, not only would I be the same distance away as when I stopped, I would stink, be hungry and cranky, and probably really tired since I can't sleep well in the car.  So that doesn't seem like a viable option.

I also could have turned on the car and drove in the opposite direction.  I could have decided that I didn't want to go home any more.  I would get further away from my destination.  I would be getting somewhere, but sometimes somewhere is no better than no where.  

And one more option that I could have chosen was to get out of the car and let The Hubs drive home.  He could have helped me finish my journey.  He could have made the sacrifice and drive the last three miles.  (I'm sure it wouldn't have been that much of a sacrifice.) And I would actually reach my destination.  I would have made it to my goal.  I would be going forward.

But I had a choice.  

It is the same in our relationship with God.  We have a destination, a goal.  Some goals are daily, some are long term.  One goal I have is to have a closer walk with God.  That one is daily.  I have to chose, daily, to get up and walk with Him.  There are days I will be on a stubborn streak and decide I just want to sit there and not move.  I don't want to walk.  But when I make this choice, my relationship with God doesn't get closer.  It starts to get stagnant.  My relationship with God starts to stink, in a way.  I then have to make a choice.  Whether I feel like it or not, I have to make a choice.  

I can sit there and not walk with God and let our relationship get stagnant.  I can get up and walk in the other direction, cause a rift in our relationship.  I can drag myself on the floor, but my journey will be quite the slow one.  Or I can just choose to walk. Whether I feel like it or not.  Because when I am walking with God, my perspective changes.  My mood increases.  My faith strengthens.  And soon, my feelings come back.  But feelings should not be the factor in my walk with God.  

So after a few minutes, I started the car back up and drove the last three miles home.  I decided my journey should end at home and the quickest way to get there was to drive.  I made a choice.  Not based on feelings.  But based on fact.  

My walk with God is a choice based not on feelings, but on faith only By God's Amazing Grace.

Something Beautiful

I have been living in a new state for about three weeks now.  It feels much longer.  But that's it.  And it has been a very busy three weeks.  The first week was spent getting the car registered and getting our licenses.  The second week was working on my new classroom.  The third week has been sight seeing.  Has been an amazing three weeks.

During one of our sight seeing trips, we went on a walk along a canal.  The Hubs, Little Bit, and I walked about 4 miles.  Would have been more if it wasn't for a down pour.  There were trees lining the walk way.  The evergreens are beautiful.  I am excited about seeing snow on them this winter.  Only animal I remember seeing was a rabbit.  There might have been horses, but I cannot remember.

For the most part, everything we saw was beautiful.  Except this one section.  There was a group of shrubs that looked like spiders made into their own little town.  It was either spiders or cotton, but either way.  I am sure they had hotels, grocery stores, schools, and parks in there.  I am thankful I didn't see the construction workers.  With the size of the little town, I would expect a large family to live there.  But it wasn't...beautiful.  It looked like a mess.

But then I noticed something.  A flower.  A beautiful flower was in full bloom in the middle of the mess.  The flower was untouched by this little town created by something I did not want to come in contact with.  There weren't any other flowers at all there.  Just that one.  And it stood tall.

It made me think.  My life is a mess.  Not every part of me is beautiful.  There are a lot of not beautiful parts to me, actually.  But in the middle of my mess, in the middle of the lack of beauty, God has found something beautiful in me.  He has found something He can use in me.  He has created something beautiful in me.  That part stands tall.  It is untouched by the mess, by the ugliness.

However messy your life is, there is something beautiful there.  Let God use it.  Don't hide behind something ugly.  Stand out with something beautiful.  

It is like that saying goes, "Only God can turn a mess into a message, a test into a testimony, a trial into a triumph, a victim into a victory." (Not sure who to give credit to for this saying.)  Only God can take our mess and make something beautiful out of it.  Only He can shine through us and make us beautiful.  We just have to let Him.  We can only do this By God's Amazing Grace.

Overheating and Homeless

Since the new job offer has been presented to me, all things have been moving smoothly.  Very smoothly.  We found an apartment from home.  We just looked on line and found one we liked.  And we were blessed abundantly with money that was owed to us from different companies.  Everything was great.

On July 1, we went to have our car looked at to make sure it was road ready.  Yeah, that was funny.  Ended up having to put around twelve hundred dollars of work into the car.  But now we had new brakes, shocks, struts, clean oil, and who knows what else.  This is after a bunch of work that has been done on the car in the past 8 months.  We have had the radiator and hoses, the A/C compressor and condenser, front brakes, ball joints, and two wheels replaced.  That car is pretty much brand new now.  Haha.

On July 2, as we finished packing our bags and boxes, two wonderful friends of ours came over to help us clean our place.  We were thinking we would have to stay back after the movers left to clean up everything.  It was such a huge relief when they both offered to help.  So then we would only have to stay back to vacuum after the movers left.  Nope.  Not even that.  One of the wonderful friends mentioned above said he could come back over Wednesday night to vacuum the place.  Like I said, wonderful friends.

On July 3, we awaited the arrival of the movers.  What I did not realize is that he had an actual semi-truck.  And he had to get that thing into our gated community.  Haha.  Ya, I had no idea.  I was seriously thinking moving truck.  So that was a small obstacle.  But he was able to get it maneuvered into the parking lot, very carefully.  It was parked about 30 feet from our door, but it was in.  Not only did we not have to stay to clean or vacuum the place, we didn't even have to stay while they were moving.  We left the movers our spare key and were able to take off a little earlier.

After stopping by my sister-in-law's place for a little bit, we were on the road.  Our goal was to make it to Salina, Kansas and stay the night.  That was the half way point in our journey. It was supposed to take six to seven hours.  Instead, it took about eleven or twelve.  That was with a lunch and supper stop, gas, and potty breaks.  And we tried to sleep.  At least the hubs got a decent night's sleep.  I don't think I fell asleep for about four hours after laying down.  But I did get some sleep.

On July 4, Independence Day, we left the motel at about 7:30 in the morning.  According to GPS, we should make it to our destination in six hours.  We were making good time.  Everything was nice and smooth.  The roads were fairly clear.  We had absolutely no signal on our phones, but that wasn't a problem at all.

We were about 100 miles from our destination when I heard a ding ding ding.  I looked down at the dash and noticed a red light.  It has waves and something sticking out of it.  I told the hubs it looked like a fishy.  Haha.  The cars temperature had reached 261 and was climbing.  And right when I looked back up, there was an exit for a gas station.  So we drove to the gas station and let the car cool down.  We poured water on the car to help it cool down.  A really nice guy asked us if we needed help, and we explained the situation to him.  He gave us some tips.  Oh, and did I mention, we had signal again?  Yep, we had roaming signal on our phones.  We were able to send out texts asking for prayer.

After half an hour, we were on the road again.  We drove with the windows down and A/C off.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  Perfect day to drive with the windows down.  About half an hour after leaving the gas station, we heard the ding ding ding again.  The was over heating again.  And once again, there was an exit and a gas station.  We pulled into the gas station, went inside to chill.  After being there for thirty to forty five minutes, the hubs bought some coolant and put it in the car.  It took the whole bottle.  So we were on the road again.

We actually made it to Denver.  Safely and in one piece.  We decided to drive by where we would live.  We couldn't sign the lease or pick up the keys until the fifth.  The moment I saw the apartments, my heart sank.  I seriously almost started crying.  The place did not look well kept at all.  The area did not look safe.  I could not imagine making my daughter live there.  I didn't know what to do.  And then the car started over heating again.  We drove down the street to a Goodwill and parked the car.  We went inside to let the car cool and to enjoy some A/C while it did that.

While we were there, I called my principal of the school to give her an update.  They met us at Goodwill and had us follow them to an eatery.  They fed us and then put us in a really nice motel.  She said to keep looking at places and if need be, we can stay at the motel until we find a place.  Amazing.

That night, I got on the internet and looked at crime ratings for the area of the apartment we were going to get.  It was confirmed that we could not live there.  The worst area for crime was on that street.  I continued to look on line for places and continued to pray.  I tried to go to bed, but I could not sleep.  I could not relax.  I kept praying for God to take it all and I told Him I knew He had this, but I was still struggling letting it all go.  But I finally fell asleep.

On July 5, we had to rent a moving truck to put our stuff in since the movers had another stop in California to make.  We got a 10x10 truck because we really didn't have that much stuff.  Apparently we do.  We had to fill the car, the cab, and one of the mover's SUV.  We took the stuff from the SUV and our front seat to the motel.  But we have all our stuff.  After that, we went apartment hunting.  I would run into a place and ask, "Do you have anything available today, tomorrow, yesterday?" When the answer was no, I would say thank you and leave.  No need wasting their time or mine.

I had an appointment at one o'clock so we were on a time crunch.  I went into a place that I thought was my name sake.  I asked my question and I got a yes.  So I went out and got the hubs and Little Bit out of the car.  He showed us an apartment.  Let me rephrase that.  He showed us the apartment we would get if we decided to live there.  It's a really nice apartment.  Two bedroom, one bath, spacious walk in closet in our room.  Very, very nice.  And a great area.  We put money down so he could do the application and all that other stuff that has to be done when getting an apartment.  But then we had to go because of my appointment.  GPS said we would be there in 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes later, we were not at our location.  We went to the wrong place.  Apparently direction matters  in Denver.  An N, S, E, and W actually mean something here.  So twenty-five more minutes later, we finally reached our destination.  Oh, and the car had reached over 300 degrees during this time.  So we knew our next stop.

So after my appointment, we ate lunch (at three o'clock in the afternoon), then went and bought coolant.  Then we went to a mechanic to have the car checked out.  Water pump.  Come to find out, water pumps are very expensive.  But he couldn't fix it there because the tool he needed was a $600 tool, which he did not have.  So he sent us to another place that did have it.  They told us the car would not be ready until the next day.  We only have one car.  So I called the principal and she let us borrow the 16 passenger school bus until we get our car back.  So her husband came and picked us up and dropped us off at the school.

While we were on our way to pick up the bus, the apartments called and said we were approved!!! We could come by and sign the lease and get the keys.  Praise the Lord!  We are no longer homeless!

So we are driving a small school bus around town until our car gets fixed.  And we have a nice place to live in a very nice area.  God is good.  All the time.

I say all this to say that God's timing is perfect.  Our car could have broken down when we had no signal and no exits.  The engine could have overheated and stopped working.  We could have not had the money we needed.  We received the money at the exact right time.  Not a minute early, not a minute late.  It was perfect timing.  We doubt so much.  We think we have to be in control of everything.  We think we have to do it in our time.  But no, God does it in His time.  And His time is always right.  Why do I worry?  Why do I lose sleep over this stuff?  I don't know?  But each time, my faith is strengthened because I see what God has done for me.  I got a new job, a new place to live, practically a new car, and stronger faith.

All of this is possible only By God's Amazing Grace!