God's Provision

Well, I didn't sleep much on Thursday night. What a scary day. We had been stuck in the desert in the middle of summer with a broken down car and a tow truck coming all the way from Moab. I didn't know if our car would be fixed easily, what had caused the breakdown or, my worst fear, that we could try that swell again after the truck was fixed, just to have the same thing happen all over.
I spent a lot of time praying that night. Trusting God, rather than fearing the future day was easier said than done. I'd also been asked a tough question--from Nathaniel. "Why did God let this happen to us?" Maybe the question bothered me because I heard myself in his words. It's true. Whenever anything bad happens, big or small, I tend to say, "Why did God let this happen?". I needed to use this experience to show my kids something about how God doesn't always keep us from bad situations, but God is always with us and providing for us through the bad situations. I have had ample opportunity to learn this truth in my lifetime. But I will still ask that same question when bad, or even inconvenient things happen. In the grand scheme of things, this breakdown was under the category of inconvenient. I am sure at the time though, my kids saw it as a very bad thing.
Even though I had clearly seen God's provision for us through that day, I didn't give Nathaniel his explanation until it was all over. Apparently, I had another lesson to go with it and to learn myself.
Long story short: The garage had our car ready by 11 am. I had decided after much prayer that if the car was ready before noon, we would try the mountain again, even though Mark had offered to rent a car, drive from Vegas and drive over the mountain for us the next day. By the time we got the truck and were able to hook up it was 12:15--not too far off from my cutoff. The trip was very tense. The mom I met in Colorado at Focus had shared with me how she would be ready to strangle her kids after traveling cross country for as long as we had and not smiling like I was at the time we were conversing. Well, apparently with the stress of the last week from Colorado to Utah and then the truck breakdown, combined with the fear of driving over the mountain range with a recently fixed truck (I'd had several bad headaches in Colorado where I had been virtually headache free prior and our campsites were chaotic with people and mosquitoes-I was also getting beeped by my warning panel that the trailer was constantly disconnecting, at least electrically), whew! Did I say short story?
I lost it on the trip. I was tense and my kids had had enough too apparently, because all they did was fight and whine. Even the dog (that we had to put in the truck with us because of the heat) was acting up. And...the trailer disconnect alarm went off every two minutes the entire time. It is very hard to spank children who are in the back seat while you are driving a truck, pulling a trailer, over a mountain range. So I resorted to my mouth. Let's put it this way--I was a little hoarse by evening. I even said a few words we don't allow like "stupid" and "idiotic". I also have to admit to throwing a few water bottles over the back seat (not full). It wasn't pretty. We were a different group that pulled in to Las Vegas that evening than the one that had traveled all over the country and gotten along fairly well. I had many apologies that evening to make.
Mark met us that evening and took over. Needless to say, we had no problems once he was with us. Even the trailer disconnect alarm just magically stopped going off when he showed up (doesn't that figure?). We drove and got home Sunday night.

Now for the lesson: I talked to the kids on Monday about the question that had been raised, "Why did God allow our truck to breakdown in the middle of the desert in the middle of the summer with four kids and a dog?" For that matter, why does God allow anything bad to happen? I am not going to get in to the deeper theological reasons,(C. S Lewis deals with this really well--have to remember which book) but explained to my kids that when we ask "Why?" we are basically shaking our fist at God and complaining "You did this to me, and I don't want it". Do you really think that is the appropriate question for the Creator of the Universe? (When Job virtually said this same thing, God questioned him. Read the last few chapters of Job. You don't want to be questioned by God, no sirree)
We really have to ask different questions. I asked the kids to come up with good questions to ask. We came up with three: 1) Will you help me through this? (God did help us amazingly) 2) Will you help me see your provision while going through this? (God revealed His provision to us by showing us how He provided a tow truck that could carry our truck, the trailer, all four children and a dog when, amazingly, AAA didn't tell the tow company we even had a trailer. God provided cloud cover that morning in a previously empty sky all week, so we were quite comfortable in our long wait. God also provided a driver who, after some talk and alot of silent prayer, agreed to drop off our trailer at the KOA so I could leave the kids in the locked, air conditioned trailer and go to the auto shop. God helped me ride Hannah's too small bike from the auto shop to the trailer park and God also provided great mechanics who charged me $35 in labor and not much in parts to fix our car. Finally, God got us over the mountain range which went on for over forty miles and got us safely home) Which brings me to question 3) How can I honor You in this trial? This last question brought on a discussion of how we did a good job honoring God while we were broken down. We prayed. Everyone waited patiently. We thanked God for the clouds and cooler weather, and the kids were amazingly quiet and cooperative the whole time we were waiting and while we hooked up the tow and while they waited for me to come from the auto shop. We did not honor God the next day while I was losing my temper, because of fear and worry and the kids were fighting and being selfish in the back seat. We all asked forgiveness and asked that we would learn from this experience.
Well, sorry this is such a long post. I can't process all the lessons we have learned on this trip. I may do that in a later post, but in the meantime--it is good to be home.