Last week I shared how much I was struggling. I still am in those same ways… but at the same time, I am surrounded and filled with the assurance that my God is taking care of me. He knows my name, He holds me in His arms, He has good plans for me, and His goodness is greater than anything that life sends my way.
I was thinking this morning that life with God is full of paradoxes. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. He who seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for the sake of Him will find it. When we are weak, He is strong.
That last one is being demonstrated to me, for never in my life have I felt so weak.
I have always been pretty confident and capable… if not of doing anything that needed to be done, then of finding someone who could do it if I couldn’t, finding another way around, etc.
But this accident, compiled on top of things related to my husband’s ER and ICU visit last month, added to being overloaded at work… you see, before the accident, I was already facing mountains above and beyond what little-ole-me can handle. Then the accident came and simultaneously did two things: 1) Added more to the mountain 2) Made me weaker and less able to “handle things” than I’ve ever been. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?
But when you’re facing a mountain so far above and beyond your ability to climb, there’s only one path that leads to victory.
“I will lift my eyes to the Maker of the mountains I can’t climb.” – Bebo Norman
I am so thankful that God has spent the last number of years giving me an assurance, deep in my soul, that He is able. That He is worth trusting. Always.
I have, these last few weeks (even before the accident), done what I never have before… resolutely shoved things out of my mind to be dealt with later, because I do not have the strength and stability to deal with it in that moment. Except it hasn’t been a procrastinating kind of shoving-it-off. (I know that one well.) Neither has it been denial. Since I am a very visual person, I can best describe it more like taking things off my very-tiny desk, carrying them over to God’s massively huge and perfectly organized desk, knowing that they are safe there until such time as He takes what He wants me to do, one by one, and lays them before me with careful instructions, when He knows I can handle it.
And that’s what He’s doing. It’s positively amazing to me.
For example, one of the things I knew I needed to do was move a doctor’s appointment I had… but I wasn’t sure which number to call, wasn’t sure what time to move it to, and wasn’t even positive which date it actually was for… I just knew that I couldn’t go the week that it was. That’s a small thing, I know… shouldn’t be any big deal to do. But it was just one more thing that I was supposed to do, and it was lumped with a hundred other things together in the, “I can’t handle all this, God, so here it is. Please sort it out” pile.
Cast your burdens upon the Lord and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken. – Ps. 55:22
The other day, the doctor’s office called me about something. I answered their question, and in three minutes, my appointment was moved. Done. Without Stress.
I keep having little things happen like this.
And then there’s the big things, like buying a new car. Because yes, my beloved little Chevy HHR was totaled. That car was just an older car in a lot of people’s minds, but for me, it was a gift from my husband who, last year, wanted me to have, for the first time in my life, the car that I wanted. And I loved it. There were a few issues… the steering column was making noises and we didn’t have the money to fix it so we were living with it… I had never quite liked the fact that the window buttons were in the center console instead of on the doors… or the fact that there was no visor mirror for the driver’s side or overhead light… but I still loved it. And it was gone…. so my husband was determined again that whatever car we got would be again something I wanted.
Car shopping isn’t fun (especially to someone like me who doesn’t like to shop at all), and buying that HHR that got totaled had been one of the most stressful things I’d done last year. This was a big part of what I felt the accident was doing to me, because now I had to do it again. One more thing to make the mountain higher.
One more thing to move to God’s desk.
So last week, I spent some time googling cars (and avoiding car salesmen). Of course I looked at the now-even-older Chevy HHRs again, but most of the newer ones (2011 was the last year for them) were in the $11,000 – $14,000 range, even with 50k miles or more. Coupled with what I now knew about recalls and expensive steering column issues, I could not see spending that much. Besides… there were only five manual 2011 HHRs within 200 miles, and all but one of them was $13,000 to $15,000. I could buy a new car for very close to that!
So I bookmarked the one that was less without looking at it too closely… after all, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, right? And I started looking at new cars. (Online, where I was safe from salesmen.)
I won’t bore you with which new cars I looked at and why… suffice to say that I looked when I felt like it, and when I started to feel pressure to “figure out what to do” I laid it all down and walked away. Eventually I set an appointment to test drive a new Honda last Saturday.
I walked into the dealership Saturday, in pain from accident-strained muscles and tendons, and I told the salesman, “I am not here to buy a car today. I cannot handle any of that today… I just want to drive that car to see if I like how it drives. I want to compare it against a particular used car that I’m considering.” I had to repeat that several times over the course of two hours, and I walked out still saying that and still unsure of which car to get.
And then I got home.
And I looked up the HHR that I had bookmarked. The one with the lower price.
And I started to feel this whisper inside of me. That’s my car.
I looked at the photos more closely, and I saw all the features that I had loved about my first one that the Honda I had test driven was missing… and again I heard, That’s your car.
I contacted that dealership (which was 100 miles away) to ask for more details.
And then I realized that the car was GM certified and came with 2 years of service just like the new car. And a 12-month bumper-to-bumper warranty. Even though it was already $2,000 less than all the other 2011 (uncertified) HHRs like it for sale.
And then I realized that I could extend that 12-month warranty to 4 years and still be less than all the other HHRs on the market… and less than I paid for my 3-years-older one last year, so I would not have to worry about steering column issues… and wind up with more warranty than the new Honda.
A very sweet and wonderful young woman from the dealership called me… and went all over the car for me… and called me to answer more questions again… and was sooo patient with my questions over and over and over again. And I felt more sure. That’s my car.
And then I was looking at the pictures of it, and I discovered something that made me laugh in delight (and everyone else laugh at me.) The window buttons were on the doors instead of the steering column! Remember how I said that one thing irritated me with my old one? Feel free to laugh with/at me, but in that moment, I knew.
That’s my car.
Yes, it was 100 miles away and I had not seen it in person. And I know that when something seems too good to be true, you should beware.
But I was starting to feel like God had gone shopping for me. That He was being my personal shopper. He knew every car inside and out, He knew what I liked and needed, and He had shown me the car He’d found for me.
He was about to prove it beyond all doubt.
On Monday, I talked again with the young woman and my bank, getting everything pulled together and prepared so that when we drove down there, the sale could be quickly finalized. My husband kept saying, “I hope this car is as nice as you think it is. I hope we don’t get all the way down there and you’re disappointed.” I totally understood where he was coming from, for I would normally be saying the same thing. The car was just too cheap.
I was also mentally shaking my head at myself over the fact that I was basically agreeing to pay their full asking price. Who does that for a car purchase? I certainly never had, ’cause dealers will always come down at least a few hundred… especially when the used car has been on their lot for over two months. (Nobody likes manual HHRs but me, evidently.)
But I refused to worry about it, and I shrugged off all thoughts of asking them to lower their price. I just couldn’t do either. I had no mental or emotional resources to try to figure that out. The price and warranty combined were good enough that, unless we got there and found that it had serious issues that the dealer hadn’t mentioned, it would work. I felt confident enough to continue walking the path laid out for me.
I printed out the bank draft and paperwork to fax a copy to the dealership so that they could prepare the paperwork before we drove all that way late at night, and I thought, “I should type up a fax cover sheet with the VIN number just to make sure that there’s no paperwork confusion.” So I pulled up the listing on their website one more time.
They had dropped the asking price of the car that morning.
Seriously! What dealer DOES that? Drops the price of a car that they’ve already got a potential buyer for?
The girl I was working with excitedly adjusted all the numbers for me, and I went to fax the paperwork.
And as I was driving, Francesca Battistelli’s new song “Knows My Name” came on.
Spent today in a conversation
In the mirror face to face with
Somebody less than perfect
I wouldn’t choose me first if
I was looking for a champion
In fact I’d understand if
You picked everyone before me…I don’t need my name in lights
I’m famous in my Father’s eyes
Make no mistake
He knows my name