Today, I didn’t get to go to church to worship God and see friends. I didn’t get to enjoy a special lunch with my church family. I had to, instead, spend hundreds of dollars and didn’t get home until later than I would’ve liked. My big plans for the day were all tossed to the wind.
And I flippin’ loved it 🙂
If you’ve ever moved, you know that it can be a lot to plan and prepare for. If you’ve ever had a wedding, you know that it can be even more to plan and prepare for. And Sydney and I are doing both of those things this month! To say that our days are a little full and we’re being stretched pretty thin — well, that would be an understatement. I dare say that we’ve even been a little stressed at times.
This morning, as I drove us to church, our minds were pretty scattered: I move into our new apartment next weekend, and am still packing up and getting all set for that, and our wedding is in a few weeks so we’re still piecing together details for that day, as well. Almost every minute of our days has been filled with something “productive” lately, but in all of that, I think we started to lose sight of something else.
So, as we cruised along the 5 freeway, coming up to the border patrol checkpoint, my darn tire pressure warning sign came on with a ‘ding’. That might mean something to most of you in your cars, but for me it’s become a very annoying habit in this car of mine – the darn censor is either hypersensitive or broken, because it seems to go off quite easily. So, I semi-jokingly cursed the warning and kept on driving. Moments later, I noticed a large helicopter overhead. I couldn’t see it, but as we were driving through Camp Pendleton area, it wasn’t unusual. It was really loud, too. And it was following us. Sydney said, “I think it’s your car,” and suddenly the car began to shake. I immediately realized that I had a flat tire, and pulled off onto the right shoulder as the car shook pretty violently. When I got out to check my flat, I didn’t quite believe what I saw.
That image above, the one of a blown-out, shredded tire? Yeah… that’s mine.
I’ve never blown out a tire before. I’ve had a number of flats from rogue screws or nails, but never this. The sucker exploded out from under us as we sailed along at a not-slow 75 mph. My nostrils were filled with the smell of burning rubber, the tire itself extremely hot to the touch. We weren’t gonna make it to church and our Sunday school duties, that was for darn sure, so Sydney texted the gal in charge and waited safely behind me on the big shoulder… keeping an eye out for any vehicles that might smash into my car and make me dead. Long story short here, I popped on the donut spare, tossed my shredded tire in the trunk, and after a turn-around at the next exit, we headed back home. Even longer story shorter, I now have 4 new tires on my car, and all is back to normal.
Well, not quite. Our normal coming into this month had become a bit of a stressed one. I don’t want to paint our wedding planning experience as a negative one, nor am I unhappy about any of these events coming up, it’s just simply been a lot for us to do. And we’d succumbed to that a bit, I feel. So, God let my tire go boom and “ruin” most of our plans for the day. So, what did we do, instead? We spent time together! Sydney and I hung out on the side of a southern California freeway on a Sunday morning, and as I changed a disintegrated tire I was singing worship songs. We slowly made our way back north on that same freeway, commenting and laughing at the crazy drivers who would zoom up closely behind us, even though I had my hazard lights on. We signed up for a Costco membership (thanks to my dad, who wanted to treat us to paying for our first year) and perused the aisles laughing and talking about what we could add to our future home. We enjoyed a peaceful lunch together and met cute dogs. We saw adorable/hilarious animals in the nearby pet supply store. We stinkin’ enjoyed each other, with no other distractions, and it was really wonderful.
After all of the dust had settled and Sydney was back at home, she hugged me and said “We did it!” And we had. We went through what could have been a very trying and negative experience, but we went through it together. As a team; physically safe by the grace of God and emotionally steady by relying on His peace, and what might look like a lousy day on paper ended up being one of my favorites in a while 🙂
Chalk up another point to the reminder that if ya ask God to teach you to have more patience/trust/etc., you should be expecting an opportunity to grow in that way pretty soon.
And if that just so happens to mean that your tire explodes? Well, count yourself lucky. I sure do 🙂