There is a word for praise in Hebrew, tehillah. It is the kind of praise that is associated with miracles like Jesus feeding the five thousand with two loaves and fish. Recently I was in Pennsylvania and planning to drive home with my husband and daughter along with boxes of frozen beans and corn from the summer garden, as well as fresh tomatoes and other produce. Our car’s air conditioning appeared not to be working and there was a major heat wave on the East coast. We all had pressing reasons to get back to Georgia by Labor Day, especially, Abby who needed to get back to her normal job.
Abby planned to do the driving since I have a propensity to fall asleep at the wheel and my husband can’t feel his feet. There was no time to get the AC fixed before our planned departure. The drive normally takes fourteen to fifteen hours. Stress and discord was mounting about how difficult the trip was going to be, but no one was willing to budge from the plan. On Thursday night I couldn’t sleep because of the worry and the expectation that neither daughter or husband would be able or willing to change their minds. In my experience, worrying is a painful and futile activity that is difficult to turn off. I got up at 4 AM and tiptoed upstairs and tried to pray. Sometimes my prayers sounds like me telling God what to do about a situation. Honestly, I couldn’t even do that. I simply said to God, “This is going to end badly, but I have no idea how to fix this.” Then I did a great thing! I put on some beautiful praise music and I spent three hours singing praises to God.
At seven AM, my husband came upstairs and started working on his computer. Suddenly he offered a plan B. Why don’t we drive Abby to Buffalo on Saturday and let her fly back to Georgia. We can get the car fixed and drive ourselves home the next weekend. Abby has a Frontier wild pass that allows her to book flights a day before for a $16 booking fee. I looked online and saw that direct flights from Buffalo to Atlanta at 11:30 AM were available for Saturday or Sunday of the holiday weekend. I waited several hours before going into my daughter’s room to propose the idea. Her eyes were barely open and I could see that she was not okay with us driving ourselves. Then a miracle happened, she said, “I am okay with this plan.” She had to wait 24 hours to book the flight, but there was still a $16 seat available.
Saturday morning, we set out for Buffalo at 7:45. The weather was cool and with windows open, the car was comfortable. I dropped her off an hour and a half before her flight, gassed up the car, stopped for a cup of tea and headed back to Pennsylvania. Five miles into the trip, tire pressure lights began to go off on my dash board. There was an exit right in front of me, and the first thing I saw was a Seven Eleven with an air pump. “Yay God!” The front left tire was seriously low and the back right tire had a broken valve stem that was leaking. I was able to fill them both and some kind soul had left a valve cap on the ground that I used to protect the leaky valve.
I called Abby and we laughed with relief that the tires waited until she got to the airport to go flat. Then I got back on the highway. Within two miles the lights were all flashing again and I knew my problem was serious. Again, there was immediately an exit off the highway. I pulled into the first parking lot and started calling tire shops. The closest one was 1.5 miles away, they had the right size tires for my Volvo in stock, and they could service my car at noon, a bit of a wait, but all things considered, pretty great. I got out and kicked the tires and decided I could drive a mile and a half without putting the spare on or calling AAA. I might have been upset, being alone in Buffalo with two flat tires on a holiday weekend, two and a half hours from home. But all I could think of was what would have happened if we had been on our way to Georgia instead. We would have been in the middle of the Sinnemahoning State Forest when the tires went flat with no shoulders on the road, no phone signal, no gas stations–never mind tire stores, a husband who can’t walk, a daughter who would have been freaking out, and frozen food that would have been thawing. God is really good!
Either the GPS or I was a little confused because I ended up at a Mavis tire store instead of Monroe. They were opened and had a few customers, but I knew the other place had the tires I needed and I had an appointment, so I back tracked to the other shop. I might have been discouraged when I saw the condition of the shop. There appeared to be only one employee, and a customer in progress, but the mechanic rushed out to greet me and said he would take care of me as soon as possible. I got out of the car to wait and another customer drove up and joined me in the parking lot. We got to chatting about this and that. When the mechanic moved my car into the bay, the gentleman got a little perturbed because he had a noon appointment as well and he just needed an inspection. I apologized that my situation was causing him inconvenience, and shared how good God was to get me safely to this place, so far from home. That mollified him for a bit and then he again seemed annoyed. I pointed out that a central call center had made my appointment which conflicted with his, and the unfortunate mechanic was there alone, fixing the cars, answering the phones, and taking the payments with no help on a holiday weekend. And, out of the goodness of his heart, he was helping a damsel in distress. The customer was struggling to get his frustration under control when suddenly I looked up at the clouds. There was a perfect circle right above our heads with two vertical slits like eyes. I said, “look at that,” and as he looked up a perfect semi-circle smile completed the happy face. We both agreed that God was smiling on us for our patience, and as my dear friend Scott always says, “You can’t make this stuff up!”
As time dragged on, the customer continued to complain to the mechanic who was already visibly upset with the frustrations of his day. I did my best to diffuse the tension. Finally, the customer’s car was inspected and as he and his wife left, he shook my hand and said, “You must be a holy woman,” and thanked me for our conversations about God. Now that it felt safe to leave the mechanic to his work, and not having eaten all day, I discovered on line, a delightful Thai take out place within walking distance, one more gift from the Lord! (I offered to bring the mechanic some food but I guess Thai was not his thing.) By six PM with two new tires, and a valve stem without a pressure sensor that was JB welded into a cracked rim, I was safely home.
You might think that was the end of God’s plan to make sure we had a safe journey to Georgia, but no! God had more surprises for us. John had ordered a new compressor and clutch for the AC on Friday. Monday, was Labor Day, so no local mechanics were open. On Tuesday, we found the closest shop that would try to fix the AC. I spent two afternoons at his shop while He attempted to diagnose the problem, convinced the compressor did not need to be replaced. However, John was correct, and miraculously, the compressor arrived on Wednesday evening. By Thursday afternoon, the AC was fixed and we went to pick up the car, only it would not start. Wally called around and found a place where he could pick up a new starter motor on the way to his shop early Friday morning. By the end of the day, we had a car that was safe to go. The valve stem was still leaking, but Wally had determined that it was losing 5 pounds of air a day. He overfilled the tire to fifty pounds and assured us that it would last for the journey. Just to be safe, we purchased a pressure gauge and air pump, as well as some dry ice for extra protection for the frozen foods.
We had a near perfect journey home on Saturday with good weather, little traffic, no flat tires, or cross words. John was able to drive for twelve hours of the fifteen hour trip. At twelve thirty AM, Sunday we pulled into our driveway. Our wonderful daughter greeted us, unloaded the car, put the still frozen foods in the freezer. The house was not only spotless, but beautifully “Feng shui’d.” The gardens were weeded. Our garage also contained a Volvo tire rim to replace the cracked one.
When we woke up later on Sunday, the children shared the bad news that both the garage door and the upstairs AC were not working. Another night of tehillah praise and God went right to work on those problems. He directed me to a You Tube video on fixing a garage door opener that mentioned that this brand has a lifetime warranty. Surprisingly, the company immediately sent out the needed parts, free of charge. And something we never do is sign up for long term warranties, except we did pay $7.50 a month to Constellation for HVAC repairs (but only a $500 discount on total replacements). They sent their repair man out the next day, a marvelous retired firefighter with years of repair experience. The filter was dirty and he replaced it but the outdoor unit was not running. Most repair shops would tell you, this old a unit just needs to be replaced costing thousands of dollars. He got out his tools, opened it up and replaced a couple of burned wires and it works like a charm, no charge!! God is so good and praising Him brings miracles.
