So after yesterday's post, I thought I'd better step it up a bit, and fill in some of the actual things we learned, discovered and experienced at SHINE. I'll start at the end instead of the beginning, with one event that really illustrates how God is in details that we are not even aware of, that He protects us in ways that we don't even comprehend, and often we are so caught up in details that we don't even recognize it. You'll see what I mean.
Rewind to mid fall. A friend of ours found himself in need of a vehicle to drive. We own a pickup truck, free and clear, that sits in our driveway undriven most of the time. We keep it around because it's paid off, it hauls brush pretty well, and what self respecting southern boy would be without one?
Anyway. We loaned this truck to our friend, to use for whatever he needed, for as long as he needed. And that was that.
Fast forward to the last day of SHINE. First thing in the morning, I received a text message and an urgent voicemail from this friend to please call as soon as possible there was an emergency with the truck. {Now, we had been living in amplified awareness of God's presence all week long. That will become important very soon.} So, with the rest of the family still asleep, I slipped out into the hallway and called him. He answered, very distraught, and explained that while sitting in his driveway, our truck had caught fire and burned up.
In that moment, having marinated in the Holy Spirit all week, I was able to view this circumstance through God's lens. Honestly, I would like to say that I intentionally took the high road, and consciously chose not to feel devastated or upset or angry or whatever about the loss of the truck. Unfortunately, I cannot claim that I did that of my own power. But the Holy Spirit working in and through me showed me immediately the BLESSING of this event. My friend kept saying, "I just keep thinking that if I hadn't borrowed the truck..." And the only thing I could see without a doubt, with complete and utter certainty, was that if he HADN'T borrowed the truck, it would have caught fire at our home while we were all at SHINE! And it would have burned our entire house to the ground.
So, through our generosity (but not BECAUSE of our generosity), God put a plan in place in October, to save our home in January. He allowed our generosity to be a vehicle (no pun intended) for our own protection.
How many times in life, do we tie God's hands and not give Him the chance to bless and protect us as abundantly as He'd like? How many times do we experience that protection in unexpected ways, yet not recognize it as protection? Yes, our truck burned up. Yes, my husband is now a "good ole boy" without a pickup, for the time being at least. But, He took something we weren't really even using, and He used that truck to served His purpose for the person who needed it, and protected us in the process.
Oh, I forgot to mention. Our friend who was borrowing the truck? He had secured another vehicle the day before the truck caught fire. The day. Before.
After a lot of thinking, we suspect that the fire was caused by compromised wiring that had been chewed on by a squirrel. It took us a long time to pull this together and even realize that there had been a squirrel in there, but we finally put all the pieces together and that's the picture that emerged.
But here's the thing, that happened AGES AGO. Like literally, several YEARS. That wiring had been compromised all that time, and yet... And yet God prevented that fire from starting until the time that that truck was no longer needed as a truck (including a previous time that we had loaned it it to other friends in need!!).
So you see, there was no way to be anything but grateful in that moment, standing there half awake in a hotel hallway, receiving such bizarre, unexpected, seemingly tragic news. The only thing I could do was say a prayer of thanks and awe.
P.S. We have since learned that the truck is a total loss, and our insurance is handling all of that, to even further blessings. What we will be receiving is not enough to buy a new truck (sorry, honey) but it is more than we'd expected, and quite enough to allow us to move up the timetable on paying off our trip to SHINE (we had strategically and responsibly financed a portion of the trip), and to kickstart a "New Truck" fund.
Picture explanation. Since we don't take portraits of objects (at least in our family), this photo of Mairwen scraping the windows on our car last winter, with The Truck in the background was the best one I could find. I think it fits.
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