I have an interesting history with cars. Not cars, exactly, more like driving. When I first got my license I had an incident where I mistook the McDonald’s drive-thru lane divider for a speed bump and I got stuck. Like completely and utterly stuck. They had to close down the drive-thru and make a ramp and I don’t know what all, but an hour or so later they got me off. In that same time period I was known for scraping my car on poles and walls that somehow were too close. I also, to my everlasting embarrassment, got the bumper/fender/whatever the big metal thing is at the front of the car caught on one of the wooden pillars in front of my parent’s house and brought down the pillar when I backed up. Ouch. I was basically a safe, though fast, driver overall – as long as I wasn’t near stationary objects. Someone gave me a bumper sticker, “If you don’t like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk,” haha!
As a young adult, in addition to the stories up above, I drove the wrong way on the freeway and on that same trip drove into the ocean. My brother wrote a poem, “Jonia had a little car/And it was painted red/And everywhere that Jonia went/The cops picked up the dead.” I obviously had issues.
Fast forward a couple + decades. I somehow seemed to outgrow the worst of my car issues. I was proud of myself. I still ran over curbs on accident fairly frequently by not judging the space well enough, but that was it. Until this summer. In France, as many of you know, I had “issues.” I scraped up the rental car. I got stuck on a log. I couldn’t park for the life of me. It kinda destroyed my self-confidence and took me back to my past. It wasn’t a good place to be in when I was about to haul a trailer across the country to get my daughter to college.
I prayed hard. Many other people prayed hard. I was terrified, so I kept praying. I pretty much was freaking out in fear, so I kept asking for prayers.
Guess what? I made it to Ohio with no problem! The trailer was fine, and so was I (and so was Elizabeth). We unloaded the trailer and returned it. Any issues during those four days were not caused by me. I felt, and feel, that it was a true miracle and a genuine answer to prayer. We had horrific driving conditions (especially for me) and yet we made it without incident.
Today in church we were talking about Christ’s miracles. The very first miracle, the one that opened the miracle phase of Christ’s ministry, was turning water to wine. It was a seemingly mundane stress that led to this miracle. They were out of wine at a wedding feast and needed more, but all they had was water. That could have elicited a shrug or a suggestion to go buy more wine. But that isn’t how Christ responded to this very temporal, very earth-laden problem. He didn’t worry about the reason for the need, He just met it. He performed a miracle and eased a burden.
This afternoon Elizabeth and I toured Kirtland, Ohio and listened to a young tour guide share a story about a man named Newell K. Whitney who felt overwhelmed by a situation he was in. When all other means failed, he prayed and heard the voice of the Lord tell him, in essence, “Do not worry. Thy strength is My strength.” In other words, with Christ as his strength Whitney could do anything necessary. And he did. He went outside of his comfort zone, succeeded, and gave God the glory for giving him the strength to succeed.
There were times on this trip to Ohio that I was terrified. Road work regularly shut the road down to one very narrow lane. There were times I needed to park. We hit a rainstorm that was intense beyond any rainstorm I’d ever encountered before (and the rain came where roadwork was forcing us into one narrow lane and the dark roads weren’t lit). I so often wanted to just stop. But I felt the Lord with us as we traveled. The miracles sought and prayed for were given. What a blessing!
So often I go through life not even thinking to ask for the miracles I need. My concerns seem so commonplace and petty and not worthy of divine help. Sometimes I ask, receive miracles, and then don’t notice or acknowledge them. Despite my weaknesses, however, I have been the recipient of more miracles than I can count. True miracles, not just blessings. I should never ever doubt that God answers prayers, for He clearly does. I am alive because of a miracle. I have my eyesight because of a miracle. I am a mother because of a miracle. I made it safely to Cleveland towing a trailer because of a miracle.
God doesn’t want us to ask only for things that aren’t “embarrassing.” Being embarrassed about my inability to have good spatial judgment in the car doesn’t matter to the Lord. The Lord grants many miracles, even though the reasons to ask seem petty to us. I was, in fact, embarrassed to ask for a miracle. I was also too stressed out not to ask for a miracle. So many other people joined me in asking for a miracle. This time, in this place, and in this way, the prayers were answered with the miracle that was needed. I am so grateful.
God is a God of miracles. He loves His children, despite our foibles, flaws, and failures. This week He showed me in unmistakable ways that He is mindful of me. If I forget this lesson it will be a tragedy. If I remember, then my life will be richly blessed. I am so grateful that God blesses even the spatial-judgment-impaired me. What a miracle!
Look to God and Live... Joyfully! 