And then. . .

This story has two pieces.

First of all, you have to know about our "savings" situation. We are not both sacrificial savers, but we're Dave Ramsey fans. So we have our $1,000 Emergency Fund, and we're always working toward that 3-6 month savings account as well.

We are a one-vehicle family, and about 2 weeks ago, that one vehicle died. It was smoking and stinking and doing all the things that dead things like that do. We towed it in to our trusty mechanic who informed us that we needed a complete new engine. A month before Christmas, this was not the news we were hoping to hear.

We debated whether to fork out a little extra and just get a new vehicle altogether or pay up for the engine. We decided that the rest of our van was good for sure (unlike the uncertainty of purchasing a "new" one), so we went with the engine.

When the van was fixed, Rodney called me with a total of $2,800. So I went to our account to see what I could scrounge up. I was hoping to pull it all from our 3-6 month supply with some remaining, but I came up with only $1,800. That plus our emergency fund brought us to the exact amount needed. It was pretty sweet :) I felt very protected and provided for when I saw that God had given us our exact, EXACT amount. So cool!

So with bittersweet hearts, we emptied our savings accounts and drove our now-working vehicle home. No more borrowing other peoples' cars or asking for rides. Our van was home.

The second part of the story stems from a phone call I got last night.

Every Friday night, we have about half a dozen or so teenagers come over to our house. We play video games and watch movies mostly. Around 10 or 10:30, we drive them all home. Last night marked the season's first big snowfall, so the debate last night was whether to drive the "Sparta kids" home or let them spend the night. Rodney decided that he would drive the Holmen kids home first and see how he thought the roads were. He would then decide to either drive to Sparta or just take those boys back home with him.

And of course he forgot his cell phone at home. You can see where this is going.

About 11:45 my phone rings displaying an unidentified phone number. I don't know if you're as cynical as I am, but my first thought was that it was the police with unimaginable news. I was relieved to hear Rodney's healthy voice respond to my apprehensive "Hello?" I knew he was going to tell me he was in a ditch in West Salem, asking me to get someone's vehicle to at least pick them up. But it wasn't even that.

About a half mile after he dropped off the final Holmen teen (coincidentally also the last person with a phone), the van decided it would not brake or turn at a small bend in the road. Rodney, his teens, and our poor van slammed hard against a curb, bending the rim of our tire and breaking the coinciding hubcap. He tried driving it, but it would go no more than a few feet before stopping again.

A Good Samaritan stopped to check on them and lent Rodney his phone. I am grateful to that man.

Rodney informed me that our van was undrivable and suggested I call my brother-in-law Joe. He lives only about a mile from where our van was stuck, and his skills as a life-long mechanic seemed like a valuable asset to have on the site.

I made the call. I then laid in bed wide-eyed, thinking about how we could possibly afford to take care of this. It wasn't a feeling of "fear" so much. It was a freak-ish thing that had happened, God knew it was coming, and He also knew of our financial situation. It was more a matter of waiting to discover how He would "show up."

And as fun as it is to see Him use His creativity to blow my mind, it's usually not with timing that I would consider "convenient." :)

When Joe arrived, he and the Good Samaritan concurred that it could just be our bent rim prohibiting our van's movement. So Rodney went about switching out the crippled wheel with our spare and discovered that our spare is full-sized! With tread! We don't even need to buy a new tire!

We'll still take it in, since it is in obvious need of an alignment (which we had done with the installation of the new engine :( ), but it looks like that is all we will need.

What a sigh of relief.

We are blessed with the ability to continue use of our van. We are blessed to not be forking out another invisible sum of money from somewhere in God's account. And we are BLESSED with family who is willing to sacrifice precious sleep and run to help-- even when they have work in the morning. Thank you so much Joe.

And then. . .

This afternoon, I was sitting inside writing this blog, and Rodney was out clearing the driveway of our new snow. My writing was interrupted when he popped his head in and said something like, "I can't get any luck." I asked what had just happened.

Our snow blower had kicked a piece of our gravel driveway out. Not through the chute, but from under the blower's corkscrew wheel.

And into the rear windshield of our van.

It's still not as much as replacing a cracked drive shaft or any of the other many expensive possibilities the curb incident could have offered. But sometimes, it feels like God is trying to talk. I will tell you that at this point, I am listening :)