The Diesel Miracle

Last week, a kid smashed into the back of my parked car while I slept unaware in my parent's basement. As it turns out, he tried driving without defrosting his windshield first. What could have been last week's disaster turned into today's fist-pumping and high-fiving.

My parents asked me what kind of car I wanted to get with the insurance money. I said, "It'd be nice to have a station wagon. Maybe a diesel and a stick-shift." But Michigan has the worst economy in the country. Alaska beats Michigan. People living on government stipends have it better than most people in Michigan. The odds of a diesel stick-shift for sale in our budget didn't give me much hope. Two days ago, I asked God where I should look for a new car. He said, "Look online with dad. I'll direct you and you'll know."

Yesterday, dad and I spent hours looking for cars online. I looked for cars within fifty miles of my parents' place in Michigan, my house in Nashville, and my brother in Texas. There were lots of cars, and none of them worth buying. I decided to search one more website. One car stood out above the others. A 1983 Volkswagon Quantum station wagon, turbo diesel, and a five speed stick-shift. And it was five hundred dollars under an already small budget. I called the owner and asked if the car was still available. "There's a guy coming to look at it tomorrow morning at eleven."
"If that guy isn't interested," I said, "give me a call."
My family and I prayed, "God, if this is the car you had in mind for me, then make a way for me to get it."

Around eleven-thirty this morning, God prompted me to call the VW owner again. The other prospective buyer hadn't arrived and wouldn't be able to look at the car until the afternoon. He said I could come over right away to have a look first. As dad and I pulled into the guy's driveway, I noticed a mural airbrushed on the hood displaying an RV on a lawn under an oak tree. The owner, a mechanic, had only owned the car for two years. The previous owner bought the car to tow behind his RV on summer vacations, which explained the mural. It also explained the 86,000 miles (most of which were tow-miles) and the perfect condition of the body. All through the test drive, dad kept saying, "you've got to be kidding! This car is awesome!" He couldn't write the check fast enough, and I couldn't sign the title fast enough.

When I wrote about the accident last week, I wanted to see what God had in store. Little did I know that I'd end up with the coolest, campiest car in Michigan. And it was everything I wanted. Now all I need to do is learn how to drive stick.

Booyah achieved, friends.

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity - Plato

Hopefully, in the previous posts, I've established a basic understanding of how I live and think. Now if I ever sound like a madman, I can refer people to those first few, lengthy posts. I understand, however, that nobody would read this weblog if I kept writing two thousand word entries. With a book, that's one thing. After you turn a page, you feel like you've accomplished something. You've made it to the next step. Let's be honest, we're more proud of reading fifty pages in a day than ten pages. On a computer, you just scroll and scroll and scroll until your eyes and brain are exhausted. And aside from feeling like you can't go on, you don't even want to retain the words you read.

My hope is to always write about the work that God is doing both in my life and through my obedience. That means that my format is far less formal than my imaginary readership may have assumed.

I have to keep this post especially short today because, well, I'm busy. And who isn't, right? But dig this. I'm back in Michigan visiting my family, and my car was parked by the curb in front of our house. This morning, a guy rammed into the back of my car and pushed it onto the neighbor's lawn across the street. My morning wake up call included a bristly cop and a tow-truck driver. The bad news is that I never like talking to police first thing in the morning. The good news is that, even though the other guy's car was totaled, my Volvo has minimal cosmetic damage. Now I have to see if he shook up the transmission, brakes, and alignment. Either way, it looks like I'll have to stay in Michigan for a day or two more than I anticipated. Aside from the possibility of a nice insurance check from the other guy, I'm curious to see why God has kept me in Grand Rapids for now.

I miss the hell out of you Nashville people. See you soon enough.

Shalom.
Isaiah.