Yesterday was a challenging day. We still haven't located my van key at Walmart. I was hoping this story would be about God helping me miraculously discovering my key but no such luck. Apparently God is still interested in my character development.
My husband checked on the price and possibility of having a new key made for my van. I needed my driver's license, insurance and title information and $53. So away I went to the car dealership. The first guy wasn't particularly interesting in helping, but my paperwork and money convinced him. It took about 20 minutes and we were on our way with a new key. Brittney was with me and on the walk back to the van I was telling her how sometimes I just need to be patient and let God work. What a great Christian parenting discussion.
We got to the van and the key didn't even fit into the ignition. Why, oh why did I just have to talk about patience?!? So I kept my cool and back to the car dealership we went.
I had another person help me this time and he did a little research. Turns out that my particular van has 'wings' on the ignition cylinder, making a different kind of key necessary. They didn't have that key base in stock. He made a quick call to a dealership in another area to have one delivered. So again we waited. This time, we went home and waited.
Meanwhile, the air conditioning guy my brother sent over came to check things out at the house. That's a whole different story. Anyway, a few hours later, the car dealership called me to let me know they had my key ready. So Steve gave Brittney and me a ride on his lunch hour. We got the new key and instructions on how to program it. It was a process that was supposed to take a little over 30 minutes. Another walk back to the van at Walmart and I started the programming process. I was pretty sure after 15 minutes that it wasn't working like it was supposed to but I continued through the entire process just in case. So an hour later, when Brittney and I were sure it wasn't going to work, Back to the dealership we went. I told the poor gal at the reception desk that we really missed them. She smiled and said she was pretty sure that wasn't exactly true.
This time I was passed to the head service guy. I told him that God was just developing my character because I needed to work on my ability to handle things with patience. He just smiled. I think he thought I was going to yell at him. He did more checking on the computer. My van seems to be one of the few that can't be programmed with just the key. They need to hook it up to their computer. I thought maybe I'd have to get it towed. AAA knows me personally now anyway. What's one more call?
The car guy did more research and discovered that they could take their computer to the van, hook it up, bring the computer back to the shop, hook it into their system, take the computer back to the van and program it that way. He was going to try to pull one one of the service guys from another project to work on it. The longer I though about it, I more I realized that they were really busy and I didn't really need my van that afternoon. I wanted it.......but I didn't need it. When he came back, I told him he could just keep the key and they could get to it when they had time later that evening or the next morning. The relief in his eyes was immediate. He promised to have it ready by the next day.
Brittney called my mom to see if she could give us a ride home and it turns out that she was right across the street at Chocolatte. We walked over and joined her and two of her friends. She bought us iced coffees and let us hang out with them. My sister picked up Brittney so she could get to work on time. After a while, Deb and her friend needed to leave. By now, it was around 5pm and it was just my mom and me. She didn't have a vehicle there but she thought that they could give me a ride when my dad picked her up. Unfortunately, when my dad called her to tell her he was on her way, he didn't have enough time to take me home before they went to work at The Valley. I was really bummed out. I have an issue with being left/stuck somewhere.
It only messed me up for a few minutes. Then I decided I could handle it. The more I thought about it, the better it became. I was in my favorite coffee shop, no chattering/fighting kids and no responsibilities. Hmmmmmm. This could be ok. I had money and my phone. I've been stuck in much worse situations with much less.
I texted my mother-in-law to see if she could stop at Chocolatte. She thought I just needed coffee and immediately asked what kind I wanted. She's so good to me!!! When I told her the situation, she said she would pick me up after work. :-)
So there I was sitting by myself at Chocolatte. Only about 10 minutes into my alone time, God sent Debra back. We chatted for another hour :-)
Then something happened that made me realize the entire point of my unscheduled, untimed trip to hang out at the car dealership and then the coffee shop was all part of God's miraculous timing. As I was talking to Debra, there was a really cute little girl about 2 years old that kept coming over to us. The two ladies with her were at the counter so I talked to the little one. She brought me over some coffee cups and we talked without talking. When her mom came back, I told her that her little one was good at sharing. Then I took a good look at the mom. She looked really familiar to me but I couldn't place her. So I said, "You look really familiar to me. Do I know you?"
She said, "Yes. You're Tricia, aren't you? I'm Joni's sister."
Then I realized who she was. Her sister, Joni, has been a friend of mine for at least 10 years. I'm not going into specifics because it's not my story to tell but I can share a little. I was very close to Joni and her husband Eric for a lot of reasons. Joni and I worked together on lots of kid projects like VBS, Eric helped us a lot with our electrical issues and computer issues, they adopted three older kids, they were persecuted by Social Services, we were one of the few that understood part of what they were dealing with and didn't judge them, and most importantly, they were just good people and good friends. The short version is that one child is in JDC custody, Joni and two kids moved out of the state last year and Eric committed suicide. I've only seen her once since the funeral, although I do text occasionally.
Joni's sister lives with her husband and family in Mexico and works at an orphanage there. They're only in the States for 10 days and only in Brookings for one day. I was able to visit with her for a half hour. I'm not going to share our conversation publically but I KNOW God allowed me to be in THAT place at THAT time for THAT reason.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment