Accept the Beamer

In the 16 years I've been with Mark I've enjoyed all manner of fun traits from him; his wit, his intelligence, his deepness, his zen- like flow... But still my favorite is his ability to demonstrate to me in concrete examples how Christ relates to his Bride. 

For the last several weeks I've had this odd instinctual foreboding that my car was on its last leg... Every time I'd go to get in it, I'd have a twinge of fear that it wouldn't start.   Mark says this is simply intuition telling me it's best to get a new car while the trade in on this one is still good. Now my scientific side doesn't like to pay attention to such nonsense as intuition.   But the feeling lingered... And so I was not surprised at all Friday afternoon after cross country practice, when I got in my car and the key wouldn't even turn.  I stayed calm at first... did all the stuff you're supposed to do... brake, finagle the wheel to get it to lock, try to shift to neutral, nothing was budging.  About 9 months ago the cylinder in my steering wheel locked up and the whole part had to be replaced.  I was sure that here again it had messed up.  It was getting late. Soon people would be arriving for the football game and I was stuck at school, sweaty and stinky from practice, no car, and getting more upset by the minute. Mark was on his way home from Memphis; I called him, told him what was happening and then called roadside assistance to get my car towed to the nearest Chevy dealer.  I was going to have to wait an hour for both Mark and the tow truck; as i waited, I realized that my windows were stuck rolled down; I realized that no mechanic was working until Tuesday, that my car was going to be sitting in some lot open, rain was sure to come and pour in to it, ruining the interior; furthermore,  I had a ton to do on Saturday: a cross country practice in Jackson, working at my gym, getting things for my meet on Tuesday, other errands...... And now I had no vehicle to do it...there I was sitting at the cross country grove... hot, stressed, worried, and I even admit a little embarrassed that I was surely about to have to explain to 100s of teenagers why my car was being towed from campus.... Soooo when Mark called back to check in, you know what I did.... I unleashed all that stress, anger, annoyance, and negativity right onto my husband. And the more he tried to be helpful, well the more I tried to tell him why he was wrong and why the world was ending.  Now I think a normal person would have hung up on me and been done, but like I said, Mark is ever the example of Christ. So here's what he did....

While I was calling my roadside assistance, he was calling the father of his bandmate, who is a finance manager at a dealership to see if he could loan me a car for the weekend, and not just any car, he was requesting a convertible. And of course, just the right car had been recently traded in, a silver BMW -Z4 2 seater convertible....now when Mark called me back and told me he had a car for me, I had a whole list of reasons why that was a bad idea (yeah I was obviously out of my mind) so I had resolved to figure something else out. When Mark arrived at school, the tow truck hadn't yet, and after a brief argument, he insisted he try to get my car started, and of course... with his magic touch and just the right finagling, HEE was able to get it started! So we canceled the tow, ....but that wasn't the end of it...Mark insisted I still try the BMW for the weekend... After all, my car has been having some problems lately, he already had this lined up... So why not... I took some convincing,  but eventually submitted.... So I got to run all my errands on Saturday in the convertible, Mark took me on a date last night and showed me what a car like that can really do. And yeah I felt totally unworthy in it.  But man have I had a fun weekend in that car!  Definitely not the weekend I thought was coming Friday afternoon.

How often have we found ourselves in this same scenario with God.  Here we are scientificating and logic-ing our way out of what God's trying to tell us. Here we are worrying, freaking out... and all the while, God is not only taking care of things,  He's lining up these incredible blessings and gifts. We're going off on Him, acting like children, and He's patiently listening. We have our come-apart. And He still shows up, He fixes what's broken, He helps us grow, and then on top of that, He blesses us, even though we didn't deserve it, even though we were not impressive at all in how we behaved in the situation, He still comes through and lavishes some crazy gift on us.

So whatever the 'broke down car' is in your life right now, know this:  God's going to take care of it.  He's going to show up. He's going to fix it. He's going to love you through your immature behavior. And He's going to bless you crazily on the other side.  Don't let your pride or desire to 'handle things' block you from the abundantly cool and fun life God is trying to give you. Don't be stuck standing by your broke down Chevy when God's trying to bring you a Beamer.