Counting my Blessings

Wednesday morning was… unique. I woke up edgy and as the early morning unfolded I found that I was continually fighting to be patient and kind to those around me. On the agenda for the day was a trip to the airport to drop off my mother, who was going to visit my sister in Utah. Her plane was supposed to take off at noon and the airport is about a half an hour away, so we needed to leave (at the very latest) an hour and a half early. In an unusual show of preparedness, we decided to leave two and a half hours early. When we got out to the mini-van, we found that it had a flat tire. I mean entirely flat. (I knew I should have picked up that screw I saw in the driveway the other day!) I spent fifteen minutes unsuccessfully trying to air up the tire enough to drive it to a auto repair place, only to have my mom and my 3 sons walk down to the corner repair shop, while I drove the van really slowly down the alley to meet them there. By the time I drove the 100 feet to the repair shop on the corner, my tire was entirely off of the rim. The gentleman informed us that this wasn’t “fixable”; that we had to drive 2 blocks to the tire shop in order to have it replaced in any reasonable amount of time (that is: within a day). I really didn’t want to ruin the rim but he assured me that if I drive very slowly and put on my hazards that it should be alright. (Apparently this unique combination of driving slowly with your hazards on protects the rim of the tire.) So, my mom and the boys walk the 2 blocks to the tire repair shop and I drive slowly (with my hazards on) to meet them there. I pull the van ever so gently into the parking lot and talk to the owner who informs me that I need to drive the van down their gravel filled alley and around to the back of the shop so that they can replace the tire. (Did I mention that I am essentially driving on just the rim?) I could hear every crunch of gravel digging into my rim and could picture all the potential damage that was being done to it. I imagined the man telling me that I’d need to replace the rim as well as the tire, by the time I got around to the back of the shop.

So when I got the van to where they wanted it, they pulled out the car jack. One guy had to lift up on my van just to get the jack into place because it was riding so low. The rim was bunged up a bit, but it was only cosmetic scuffs and dings, etc., so they repaired the tire. Meanwhile, the owner pointed out how poor the condition of the other rear tire was and convinced me to get that tire replaced as well. So they start fixing the other tire. At this point the owner says, “You weren’t planning on paying with a credit card were you? Because my machine is down and I’m only accepting cash.” As a matter of fact I was planning on paying with a credit card and don’t carry any cash. So he kindly told me I could walk 3 blocks away to an ATM so that I could get cash. He would not let me leave my mom and my boys and drive my van up to get the money. So I ended up jogging barefoot (due to the fact that I was wearing floppy sandals) to the ATM to get the money and back. I was winded but paid for the van and off we drove to the airport with two new-ish tires. Guess how long this adventure set us back? One hour. So as I was driving away I had to stop (mentally) and praise God for all the blessings that I could see in this experience (and for the ones that I can’t see, too)!

• Praise God that He moved us to decide to leave an extra hour early
• Praise God that the tire went flat in my driveway rather than on the freeway at 70 mph
• Praise God for the great attitude of my mom who accepted with contentment the possibility that she might miss her plane and miss out on her visit with my sister.
• Praise God for the attitudes of my sons who saw the flat tire experience as an “adventure”
• Praise God that He provided the money for the repairs just that morning before we knew of the expense
• Praise God for the new tire repair place being so close to our house so I didn’t have to drive the car far or pay to get it towed
• Praise God for my health and fitness which allowed me to be able to walk (or jog, as it were) up to the ATM
• Praise God for my mom’s and my children’s health and fitness that they were able to walk to the repair shops (thus taking a bunch of weight off of the rim of the tire)
• Praise God that we were able to get the whole situation taken care of and we still managed to get my mom to the airport in time
• Praise God for the new found appreciation of planning extra time “just in case”…
  

There are so many more praises to be said, but God knows them all. This situation was a big reminder of the grace of God in our everyday lives. May the Lord help me to praise His name all the more in every situation!