An In-between: God Grants Wishes, so be Careful What you Wish

"Lord, we're planning on going to South Dakota in a couple of months. We know some of our cars aren't running quite right. We pray, Lord, that if one of the cars we're planning to take is going to break down, that it would do so before we leave." Thus prayed Dad one morning a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, we all got ready to go to a wedding located close to three hours away. The wedding began at 4 P.M., and Dad intended to leave in time to get there thirty minutes early; just in case.

My sister mentioned to me before we left that she "disliked being way early like that." I mean,"
she said, "I don't like being late either, but not whole thirty minutes early. I like to be on time or maybe just a little bit early," she said.

"Man," one of my brothers said before we left, "I don't see why we have to drive three hours in the hot sun to go to a wedding for people we don't really know that well, and when there probably wouldn't be anybody we know there!" (These were his words, although he was slightly exxagerating since we did know quite a few people).

The hot sun was a big deal for the rest of us, particularly myself and Mom. Our car didn't have airconditioning, and a three hour drive in the sun did not sound particularly fun. I think I did my share of complaining as well; and we all wished for airconditioning.

Our van had been repaired only the day before, so when we got on the road to go to the wedding, Dad was alert for how the van was driving.

"Wow!" he said after a few minutes, "this is driving better than ever before! If the airconditioning was fixed, I'd say we could take this to South Dakota!"

We suffered two hours in the hot car. It was probably close to a hundred in there. Traffic was extremely slow, and that did not help anything at all. At 2:30, we had only just passed Olympia. Traffic finally lightened up a bit then and Dad started to accelarate a little. That is when it the car showed that it had a voice all it's own.

"CLUNK!" it said. (Dad lost power). And then, ..."clunk...clunk...clunkclunkclunketyclunketyclunketyclunk." Of course, we had just passed an exit. We couldn't get off for several more minutes and with each passing moment the car voiced its grievances with more and more vigor. We pulled off into a gas station and we all seven of us got out of the car. The car was smoking. It was however about ten degrees cooler outside of the car and there was a slight breeze which actually made it pretty nice.

We were able to find a towtruck, but, as luck would have it, all of the rental car dealers closed at 1 p.m. Thankfully, the tow truck wasn't that far away. It arrived in about ten minutes with a very nice driver. If you ever have an emergency in Olympia, call William at Great Northwest Towing! William had found a rental car dealer that closed at three. He offered to take us there.
We all thought he meant that he would take Dad to the dealer and dad would get a van and drive back to the gas station and pick us up. However, William had a different plan.

"You all get in the van now and I'll put the van on the tow truck and take you all there at once." So we did, and he did. We rode in our broken van on the tow truck and waved at the top of all the buses passing beneath us. William and our tow truck ride almost made up for not seeing the groom at the wedding ride in on a horse.

When we arrived at the car dealer on top of the tow truck, the people inside the building were startled. The expression on their faces to see us all there in our fancy wedding clothes was well worth it. We were able to get a minivan after fifteen minutes and we all piled in. The car dealer closed up while we were doing so. We had just barely made it before they closed.

The first thing we all noticed was that our rented van had...duh, Duh, DUH, AIRCONDITIONING!! YAY! We arrived at the wedding just as they were being prounounced "husband and wife," so, we didn't miss all of it; only, like, the first 45 minutes.

So, we all got our wishes: The car broke down before we went to South Dakota, just as Dad desired, my sister wasn't half an hour early, my brother didn't have to see a wedding that he didn't know the people, and everyone else got airconditioning. Praise the Lord!

Oh, and one other thing, on the way home the traffic was very light. The trip should have only taken two and a half hours. We had to make a stop to drop someone off. Just as we reached the second to the correct exit on the freeway, the cars in front of us came to a dead stop in all five lanes. We could see flashing lates at the curve in the road just ahead. The accident, a serious one, blocked three lanes. Thankfully, we had come upon it only shortly after it had happened. It only took us thirty to forty-five minutes to get past it!

In case you didn't notice, yesterday was a very adventurous day. I recommend all of you, if you don't want something similar, to be careful what you say and wish for. God just might show you tangibly that He is listening to you all the time!

(This has been: An In-between. Look in for real next time if you want to see what I promised before: Snippets of__)