Last month Brooke and I were asked by our mechanic if we were especially attached to our car...that's never something you want to hear from your mechanic. Consequently, we were forced to find another family vehicle and after weeks of searching we found a vehicle in our single income, stay at home mom price range. That was 9 days ago.
This morning I did what thousands of dads were doing: packing the family car and heading to grandma's for Christmas. After packing up, cleaning up, and escorting three trips to the restroom, we were finally on our way. Excited about meeting some good friends for lunch and then eventually on our way to grandma's we prayed and pulled out the driveway. Halfway through our journey (while I was napping and Brooke was driving) the car lost power and she was forced to find space to pull over on a bridge of a busy interstate. As we waited for a wrecker to find our location, our car shook and moved as every car and truck whizzed by on their way to grandma's. When we finally arrived at THE garage of this one horse town, we were told that the car we owned for 9 days would need a new transmission (something of a torque converter malfunction and depositing debris in the transmission). This was turning out to be not a very merry Christmas.
To our surprise, the friends we were meeting for lunch arrived at the garage. They took our kids to McDonald's while we dealt with what to do next. I made a call to one of our volunteers who is a service manager for a large dealership in Memphis. (He is one of those guys who knows everyone and doesn't take no for an answer.) He began the arduous process of getting the car fixed. After several phone calls to dealerships, customer service, the salesperson who sold me the car, and my insurance agent, we were just simply stuck. The garage couldn't do the work on the vehicle, it needed to be towed to Memphis, no one would take blame for a bad transmission, and we still hadn't made it to grandma's. This was turning out to be not a very merry Christmas.
A short prayer later and a few more phone calls, my volunteer called and arranged for a dealership in Memphis to install the transmission for almost $1000 less than our lowest bid. He even offered to come get the car on his own the next morning and bring it back to Memphis to save us money on the towing charge. Our friends, who had been at McDonald's for about 2 hours by now) told us we could pile in their car to head on to Little Rock, where we would drop them off and take their car on to grandma's for Christmas. While we were in the car (our luggage, several Christmas gifts, 5 children, 4 adults, and 1 fish) a friend of ours from our church called. He heard of our predicament and told us that he had made arrangements to get our car fixed over the holiday and the bill had been taken care of.
I immediately began to cry, overwhelmed with a deep sense of gratitude. Our friends were loaning us their car, another friend was picking up our car and taking it to the shop in Memphis, and even more friends had taken care of the bill. I'm one of those guys who is very grateful, but I don't receive gifts very well. I've always been taught that you work for what you get and to be on the receiving end of such incredible help is simply overwhelming. Our friends have been so much more than a blessing to our family today, they were being Christ to us today as they selflessly met our needs.
Words can't adequately express how I feel about our day. In thinking through all the emotions I've felt today it leaves me rather exhausted. We went from a road trip from hades to being overwhelmed with generosity from our friends and family of faith. A good friend reminded me today that if God can move mountains he can take care of transmissions...how true. God's unexplainable grace and overflowing provision for our family continues to amaze me. Our journey today will last in my mind long after the new year; it stands as a reminder of just how wonderful He is to us.
Our hearts of so thankful for Casey and Janie Cole, Mike Kerr, and several others who have offered an unbelievable gift to make our Christmas an extraordinarily very Merry Christmas. I only hope that one day I will have the opportunity to give back what I've been given today.
By the way, we finally made it grandma's... and it was worth every mile.
So incredibly grateful,
Jason
