road trips and blessings

John and I set off for Colorado with our two youngest kids and a car full of stuff a few weeks ago, and fully expected to arrive there without any trouble. I have a pretty reliable car and don't even remember the last time it "broke down." That's because it really never happens. So, needless to say, it was a little unexpected when we started losing battery power and having our warning lights come on toward the end of our first day of driving. We stopped at a Dairy Queen (which was the only thing around for miles) and got a jump from someone there, which boosted our battery power, but didn't seem to solve the problem. John was worried that the alternator was going out and wanted to get to a town with an auto parts store as soon as possible. So, we said a prayer that we would be safe and be able to fix our problem, then we headed on our way to Amarillo, the closest town. About 5 minutes into the 30 minute drive to Amarillo, we started losing battery power and rapidly lost power to the whole car. It was nighttime, and hot outside, but we turned off our a/c, our lights and every other accessory we could, to feed any last bit of power to the car. We went on like that for another 5 minutes or so until the power cut completely out and we coasted off the road in the dark.

There we were, stranded on the side of the highway, in the middle of no where, at night, with 2 small kids and no friends to call for help. I won't lie, it crossed my mind that we had prayed to make it safely to our destination and to be able to solve our problem, yet here we were in this predicament. I didn't understand why. Couldn't we just have made it a few more miles? Why were we here like this? We started trying to figure out what to do. John remembered that there was a roadside assistance number on the back of the TX drivers licenses, for help from state troopers, so we tried to call several times to no avail. It was busy. Bummer!!

We were getting frustrated. It was very hot, and we were all getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. My kids were hungry and tired and I wanted to solve this problem. I was a little bothered that we couldn't have just made it into town, even to a gas station or some other place to get the kids out of the car and off the side of the highway. I'm a little impatient, I guess, but I wanted it my way and I didn't want this struggle. It wasn't a good time.

John was trying, but it's a difficult task to flag down help from cars that are going 75 miles an hour on a highway at night, especially when we didn't even have our hazard lights on. We had flashlight, so I stood with Brooke on my hip and the light waving back and forth trying to flag someone down (looking as non-threatening as possible.) It didn't seem to work. I finally got her back in the car and was starting to wonder what we were going to do, when John said that someone was stopping up the road a ways. I felt so blessed. It's amazing how much more we appreciate things that we have to wait and work for.

It's also amazing to me how safe we felt loading our family into the car of a complete stranger. There was no question about whether or not this was a good man. We knew that he was just there to help us and he did. He took us into town, where John bought 2 new batteries at the local Wal-Mart. Then he took us back to our car and helped John install a battery while the kids and I waited in his air conditioned vehicle. Along the way, he also reserved us a hotel room and eventually made sure we made it there safely.

This man was an answer to our prayer. Certainly, the Lord could have given our car the power it needed to make it to town. But he chose to bless us instead with kindness from a stranger. The man, Ron, didn't have to stop, he could have gone right by, like so many other cars did. It was late and he was tired, on his way home from a long business trip himself. But he stopped and gave us the help that we needed. When our car was working again, we said goodbye to our good Samaritan, and new friend. We tried to pay him for his help but he refused the money, and told us that it would take away from the blessings he might receive. He hadn't stopped because he wanted to get paid. He said that God told him to stop, and when God tells him to stop, he does it.

It wasn't the outcome I had envisioned when I prayed that we would be kept safe, but I am now grateful that it is the experience that we had. We were so grateful for his help. We were grateful for the hotel that we had to sleep in that night and for our car working well the rest of the trip. I know that we were being watched over and that the Lord answers prayers in his time, and in his way. We may never know what he has in store for us but he knows what we need. I'm grateful for that. I needed a renewed sense of how good and kind people can be. I'm grateful for a kind man in Amarillo, TX who listened to a prompting and became an instrument in the Lord's hands to answer our prayers that night. That frustrating situation was actually a real blessing, as we recignized the hand of the Lord in our life.

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As a follow up, 3 cheers for John and his mechanic skills! He bought and installed a new alternator the next day and then, when it didn't fix the problem, he took it out and installed another new one. Turns out the 1st one was actually no good. Humorous as it sounds, the 2nd one was actually no good either, it was so weird. He actually had them tested and both of them were bad, right out of the box. The third time was the charm though and by the end of the day, we were back on the road again, powered up and running as good as new. We arrived safely in Colorado that night, and ended up having a wonderful trip.