"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." ~ Hebrews 4:15-16
For the most part, all I've ever really required in a car is that it routinely get me safely from "Point A" to "Point B." (OK, I'll admit that I'm at least a tiny little bit vain, so when shopping for a car, I confess to caring about color and other aesthetics . . . and air conditioning is nice . . . but I digress.) The point is, so long as my car gets me to my destination and back, many of the basic maintenance needs of my car (other than putting gas into it) can be all too easily forgotten - until some dire situation screams out for my attention. And that brings me to my story.
About half-way through my 3-mile drive home from work one day, my car started making a strange noise. Now, being 16 years old, my car makes plenty of strange and somewhat disconcerting noises, but this sputter was different, and while idling at a stop light, the sputter suddenly turned to silence. My car had stalled in the middle of commute traffic! Desperately, I reached for the hazard lights while frantically putting the car into park and trying to restart it. Gratefully, my restart attempt was successful and I was able to get home, but as I drove I noticed that my car was running REALLY hot! Appealing to my eternal optimism and hoping that a simple fix would be possible, I popped the hood as soon as I got home and, as I'd suspected, found the coolant overflow tank to be pretty well empty.
Having given the engine some time to cool off, in the morning I again popped the hood, poured coolant into the thirsty radiator, and started up the car. Gratefully, that hideous sound had gone away, and my car didn't seem to be leaking coolant, so I headed out, keeping an eagle eye on the temperature gauge, in desperate hope I'd make it to work without incident. Thankfully, I did, but noticed that my car continued to run hotter than usual. Still hopeful that a "fix" would be, at most, only a few hundred dollars away, I took my car to a local shop that, among a few other limited services, worked on cooling systems. Alas, when the call came from the shop, the news was not good: a blown head gasket, they told me, and they did not do that kind of work, so I'd have to take it somewhere else. *sigh*
Not to be defeated in my optimism, I ran a Google search for frame of reference on cost, only to discover that, due to the extensive labor required for a fix, I could reasonably expect a repair bill in the neighborhood of $2000! Now I'd been saving, but wasn't quite in the position to afford a new car, and yet the thought of a repair bill quadruple the value of my car wasn't making sense to me, either. So, unsure of what to do, I shot up a quick prayer, overtly asking for a miracle, and made a call to my Harley-riding, car tinkering brothers for advice.
Upon hearing my story, my brothers gathered up their tools and made the 20-mile trek to come on over to check things out. After a while of poking around under the hood, my eldest brother, a certified auto mechanic, pronounced the miracle I'd been praying for - my problem was not a blown head gasket, as I'd been told - it was a bad fan relay (basically an over-priced fuse, he explained to me), and after a trip to an auto-parts store (and some well deserved, gentle chiding about how paying more regular attention to the needs of my car was important to keeping it running reliably), my brothers had my car all fixed up . . . well, at least the cooling issue.
Disaster averted, I offered a sigh of thanks to God for His provision, recognizing that quite above and beyond what I'd even asked for, these two messengers of God's mercy had brought more to me than news of answered prayer and a lesson on the importance of faithfulness in car maintenance. For although it could be easily argued that my own irresponsibility and neglect were the root causes of the pickle I'd found myself in, neither of them had delivered even a word of blame or shame - nor did they arrogantly pontificate about what I could have done (or SHOULD have done) to avoid the problem and then leave me to solve it on my own (as we humans so often do to one another). On the contrary, in my moment of desperation, I was offered mercy, hope and help by two greasemonkey angels graciously willing to interrupt their own lives and get their hands dirty in response to my need - because they love me.
How very like the God who sent them - the One who loves me more than anyone else. And how sweet a reflection of the grace I meet when I accept His invitation to bring my troubles boldly before His throne of grace - even troubles of my own making . . . which is a good thing, because I can think of a few OTHER things I've been neglecting, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a little of His wisdom and help to get me back on track.
