Thankful and Blessed!

Yesterday I wrote about my roadside experience and today I shall give you the rest of the story.

The spare tire that we finally got on the Explorer looked like it needed some air in it.  The next day I thought I would stop at the garage here where I live on my way to town with my family to get lunch and get some air put in the tire.  I stopped and the man who owns the garage and is the only mechanic there and he really just does state inspections said he could put some air in it and told me to pull in.  He is also a church member and I think a lot of him and his wife – they are quality people.

He checked the tire and put some air in it.  He then asked me about the flat which I had with me.  I pulled it out and he said why don’t we see if we can plug this.  I was on my way to have lunch with my family and I was going to see if I could get someplace to check this out.  We looked at it to put the plug in and it had a pretty good gash in it and it did not look like it was fixable.  The mechanic friend of mine then said, stay here a minute and went and came back with a tire.  He took the flat tire off the rim and put a new tire on it.  After that he then rolled it over to Explorer and took off the spare and put the new tire on.  Funny thing is I turn around and the man who helped me the night before walked in to get one of his vehicles inspected.

I am amazed the way God works.  In all this stuff that had happened to us,  God brought people along our way who blessed us richly.  It serves as such a good reminder to me that even in those frustrating times of life, God is there and working.  God is actively working and it is such an encouragement to see!

I got to see first hand the church in action.  I saw the love and compassion of the great people where I live.  I am sure that even if I was not the pastor,  the people would have just been as compassionate, loving, and a great blessing to me.  Thanks to those who were our mechanic angelss last weekend in this adventure.  Thanks for being the hands and feet of God.  Thanks for being an example as to how to treat people and deal with people in a Christ like manor.  I pray God blesses all of them abundantly!

For us, the take away today is to be bright examples to Christ’s love by acting in ways that shine it brightly!

Anything or anyone that you are thankful for today? I am thankful as I said before for all those who helped us out!

The Crazy Roadside Experience!

Last Thursday my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew were visiting.  Every year they come and visit in the week between Christmas and New Year and we always see a movie and do some shopping.  This year we made the trip to see Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - great movie that I highly recommend – then off to do some shopping.  The men and women split up and each went to stores that they liked and picked up a few things.  We got back together to head home but before that we made one more stop at Ollie’s discount store .  It takes a little over an hour to get home from where we were and my brother and I were going to make homemade pizza for the family once we got home.

We were almost home went I yelled back at my son and my nephew to stop rocking back and forth in the back of the Explorer.  A few moments went by and I yelled back again to stop but this time I turned down the radio when I did.  After yelling back I heard a strange sound.  My brother and I about the same time said “I think we got a flat tire”.  I pulled over into a parking lot of a mechanic shop that was closed and saw the tire was flat.

All seven of us climbed out of the Explorer and I began to get all the stuff out to change the tire.  I got the hand jack and unwound the tire from under the back end.  My brother and I then started the whole process of changing the tire.  It was cold – temps probably in the high teens and the kids and ladies were getting cold so we were trying to go as fast as we could.  The jack stunk and it was taking forever and it had already fallen over once when the car was about two inches up in the air.

I pumped the jack, my brother pumped the jack, and my sister-in-law pumped the jack.  We pumped and pumped and pumped.  In the meantime my daughter calls a friend to come and pick her, my son, and nephew up because they were freezing.  The get picked up and my nephew is freaked out because the young man (our neighbor) had to move six shotguns and shells to the back before everyone could fit in the truck.  He and some friends had been out hunting.  He then drove them back and the were now home and were safe and warm.

Back at the Explorer, we were still pumping the jack.  I was pumping it up and my brother was holding the spare tire and told me we needed a half inch and it would fit on.  We were almost done with this! I pumped one last time and the Explorer shifted and the jack fell over and the car was now on the ground without a tire on it.  I was frustrated and had to count to 10 20 and now try to figure out what to do.

My wife and I are talking and then a name popped into my head of a man in the church and I called him and asked if he had a floor jack and if he could come help.  He said sure and was on his way.  He came well prepared – even with the head of the buck he killed earlier in the day in the bed of the truck – no lie.  We got the floor jack under and pumped up and tire on.

Now his floor jack gets stuck pumped up under my Explorer.  We tried everything but could not get it down.  My friend then tells me to drive off it.  He takes a couple of bags of sand out of the bed of his truck and puts them under the tire and I drive off.  It was exciting because I was not too sure it was going to work and when it did we were all thinking we were ready to get warm.  We thank him profusely and drive the 6 miles home.  We were tired and cold and glad to be home and my brother and I did make pizza for everyone.

No overly spiritual thoughts today but I do want to say that this whole thing was frustrating in many ways but in this craziness I laughed a lot and had a good time with my family.  It was defiantly a memory maker!

There were many blessings in all this.  Here are a few: I saw how blessed I was to have someone I could call and I know that there were about 30 more people I could have called.  I was blessed to have someone come who was creative and a quick thinker to be able to get things done when so many things were going wrong.  I was blessed to have someone I could trust to come and get my children home safely. I was blessed to have a good laugh with my brother.   I could go on and the story does actually and  I will share “the rest of the story” tomorrow.

Any thoughts on our crazy roadside experience?