The Saga of my car

Step 1. Buy a car

About a month ago I bought my first car ever. Because of my new job working for the North Texas regional Chi Alpha director helping him with events and conferences I needed to be able to travel a couple times a week to work. So my bro-in-law helped me search cars on craigslist and eventually we found one. On the way to check that car out, we took a strange route Chuck wasn't planning on taking and ended up driving past a small automotive shop with cars for sale by the curb. We ended up stopping and looking at a white saturn that was in really good condition. It was in my price range so we took it for a test drive and found it to be a really great little car. Strangley enough, we looked at the car off craiglist right after this and it was broken down and not near as nice as the one we had just seen. We ended up purchasing the Saturn!

Step 2. Legalize/do maintenance on said car

Considering that the car we bought (White Saturn) was a 1996 it was in great shape...minus needing new tires and some random other repairs. However because of a mess up with the title the paperwork took about a month to accomplish, partially because it was so difficult finding rides to go to the different places to do it all. Also, when we took it in to get new tires, we ended up having to get new wheels as well (which are two different things...go figure). Then I proceeded to leave the lights on one night and the battery died...yeah, I'm an idiot. And this wasn't the newest battery so it wouldn't hold a new charge...so then we bought a new battery. Then there were the wiper blades, the taillight, the headlights, and some wiring issues, oh and flushing out something or other and changing the oil. BLAH.

You'd think after all that it would be good to go. Well...

Step 3. Drive car and have it work

Self explanatory

Step 4. Drive car, have it not work, then work, then not work again

So Sunday come home from church, stop in my apartment, jump back in car to go see Chuck and Ginger and my Dad who is in town, car doesn't start....but I wait a few minutes (after frantically calling Chuck) and it starts...
Tuesday (today) I drove it to UNT to run an errand before my class and when I come back out to my car it doesn't work AGAIN! Oh No! Is what I'm thinking. Needless to say Chuck had to come by after getting off work to help me figure out what to do. He jiggled a few things and ended up getting it started.

SOooooo. What can we learn from all this? I mean, it's hard to say and I'm still realizing all the reasons why my first car story is turning out this way. But as I was reading this pretty good book today called Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot there was a passage that stuck out to me as food for thought and action.

"If God gave it to me," we say, "it's mine. I can do what I want with it." No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of - if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.

The car is not mine and I have to keep remembering why I have it in the first place. God gives and takes away. Someday I may have to give it up and will I be ok with that? In fact, tomorrow the car may explode or something. There will be a reason for it and there is a reason I have it now. Ahh...the beauty of having a car. I have learned so much about it all and that is pretty fantastic. I'm glad to have had so much help too. What a blessing to have two awesome big brothers who know things about cars, and a Dad who loves helping his daughter. Anyway, just wanted to write it all down. also -

some things I did today I wouldn't normally do:
1. Noticed the weather...it was beautiful and the sky, especially around sunset was fantastic. So glorious and just filled with God's glory.
2. Bought McDonalds coffee for me and a security guard who was really nice.
3. Took a nap in the back seat of my car...sort of a random activity that everyone should do.
4. Walked home in the nice weather
5. Played with my niece in a beautiful patch of green grass. her laugh and smile is worth so much more than a car.
6. read part of a good book and just sat and thought about it

Days don't always go as one plans....but that's cool. God shows us some cool things through total weird change.