you ever hear that overused Christian slogan, "if God brought you to it, then He'll bring you through it?" yeah, i've always hated that saying. i hate those kind of cliches really. i always feel like they degrade the issue, as if some cute, rhyming proverb is supposed to comfort the hurting person. instead, i suspect they make the person feel as though their issue isn't very big and they're over reacting. i don't know; maybe they do comfort some people. that's just never been my personal experience...
i've had a rough week...year...life, really. {pardon the dramatics.} okay, maybe not that rough. i'm a little whiny at the moment. but you know what, i want to whine for a sec. if you don't want to listen to my whining...well, who cares?! you're not writing this are you? close the stupid tab.
anyway, this week has blown. for a lot of reasons. however, i only intend to deal with one here. the others are not only personal, they're not all mine to share.
so, my car. allow me to outline shortly. my car has been more or less the bane of my existence since about two months after i bought it. my fault a little. and the dealer's some. heck, you weren't there...it was all the dealer's fault...no, it's not. i think that's part of what bothers me. see, apparently i have some kind of problem dealing with failure. but that's a different issue. i digress; back to the car. i am currently the disappointed, dissatisfied, and disheartened owner of a 2004 vw passat. stress {in more ways than one} on the word owner. i paid off this little gem last february. proud of myself too. it's almost like i'm a grown-up. yeah my car sucks...but it's mine. i feel obliged to add to this, it's not all the car's fault. oh, it's a little the car's fault, and one of my biggest issues with the car is what is my fault. vw's, when taken care of, are good, safe cars. but when mishandled, they cost more than they're worth. the funny thing about a vw is that it doesn't take normal parts. everything that goes in it must be vw, and carry with it the vw price tag. which is what i should have considered before i bought it. i won't make that mistake again.
subsequently, i paid for this car itself, with interest, somewhere in the region $13000. yeah, i overpaid. but what's done is done. no use crying over spilled milk. since i bought the car, i've had one major system after another go bad and need replacement at an alarmingly increasing rate of failure. i've put something around $4k +/- into just repairs. do the math. i've had this car for two years, almost to the day, and i've paid {and am still paying} somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 grand to keep this unquenchable black hole on the road. but that's not even the best part.
yesterday, inexplicably, my dash started flashing some lights about my brakes and beeping shrilly at me. lovely. this morning i took it in. {brake problems are not something one puts off.} after a couple of hours, they couldn't find the problem. i'd been out of brake fluid apparently when i pulled in, but after replacing the fluid they couldn't find a leak or get the lights to come on. of course. {incidentally, i have a theory that mechanical failures will not occur while in the presence of a man. i have evidence that suggests that cars are sexist machines that will only act up when women are present, and never repeat their failures in front of a mechanic who would know how to solve the problem...} i needed the oil changed, so i had them do that while it was there. but the brake problem was something they didn't know how to deal with until it repeated the offense, so they told me to drive carefully and come in should the lights come on or brakes feel even slightly bad. which is what i did. i ran some errands and was on my way home when my dash lit up again. i took it in.
as you are no doubt already aware, the news was not good...
apparently, there's this thing called an abs monitor. apparently, the one in my car doesn't work right...or at all actually. apparently, without it, my car's back brakes could lock up should i need to slam on the brakes. {have you seen houston's drivers?!} apparently, with labor, at the only place able to fix it -- the vw dealership -- the repairs will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000. apparently, also, i have something of a "lean system" that my car has been running with. {if someone had said this of my personal system, i'd have taken it as a compliment.} apparently, they don't know what's causing that -- could be several things -- but they do know that it's shot my cat converter...the brand spankin' new one i paid over a thousand to replace last fall. apparently, since it's not a defect, it would be another thousand to fix. {i didn't bother telling them about the slow leak with the coolant i have.} apparently, this car and i are no longer meant to be.
it's not just that i don't want to pour another $3000+ into this car. {although, i don't.} i cannot afford that. i have neither the money nor the means of getting that kind of money. and additionally, every 4-5 months now, something else BIG breaks. really? 17k in two years. i could have bought a newer, more reliable car for that. i can't keep doing this, and i don't think i should.
i suppose it has become abundantly clear to me now that i need to buy a newer, more reliable, non-vw car. i wasn't planning on this. oh, i had a plan. make the car last another year or so. next summer, after saving up, i would trade her in for a nice car. but, alas, that was not meant to be.
which is kind of the story of my life, as it happens. i plan. i organize and i research and i detail and i work or reason out what's going to happen. and then God steps in front of me and {with i'm pretty sure the same pointed finger and tone that i use on riley} He says, "no." and inevitably, i struggle. and then He gets sterner, " i said, 'no.'" and i cave. i'm not positive what would happen were i to continue to struggle beyond this point; i've never really attempted it. but the thought alone gives me reason to imagine a giant paddle, which is frankly quite terrifying and inspiration enough to never want to find out.
those who knew me when i was younger can attest: my life is not quite what i imagined it would be. oh, i'm quite content; i have no regrets...well, maybe a car i bought...it's just not the direction i'd chosen to set myself upon. but that's the kicker, i suppose. most major decisions in my life have come upon me unexpectedly, altering my course and destination, and choices i thought i'd made were revised or avoided altogether. i've found myself in places i'd never imagined, with new dreams, while old plans and dreams have slowly faded away. and each time it's clearly been a God thing. i would think i knew what He wanted me to do; i would set off in that direction, only for God to put a wall up that forced only one option in a direction i'd never even considered.
i empathize with paul some on that one. more than once, he set off in a direction {asia for instance}, only for God to force him in a 180 toward what looked like death in europe. and look how that ultimately turned out. if paul hadn't gone with the gospel to europe, how different would our lives be today? i'm not saying any of my decisions are nearly as epic in repercussions as paul's were, but i am saying i never see the whole picture until hindsight. and every time, it's better than i was even capable of imagining.
and i don't truly think the significance of my current predicament is the monetary value of my car. in fact, increasingly often, God has been putting me into situations from which only He can save me and, i think, demonstrate to me His power.
maybe i sound arrogant; i don't intend to be. it's just that recently i've felt as though the majority of trouble i've faced has had little to do with me. i didn't really do anything exceptionally foolish to get myself into the problems. it's as though God is putting me into these scenarios so that He can swoop in at the last moment and make it clear -- i had nothing to do with my rescue. it's on God. and i think that's my major life lesson of the moment: i have to let go. i am not in control, and frankly, i don't think i want to be. {i've seen that job description, and i'm not interested.} even in the little moments of rescue {moments i won't bother to explain as they might make me sound even more neurotic} i find i almost hear an audible voice telling me, "I want to make sure that you understand that I did that -- not you."
maybe i am neurotic. {maybe?} i am hearing voices, right?
this i do know: this point in my life, God is using to teach me to be okay with not being in charge. i am not responsible for my fate, and if even half of the dreams/visions i have for my future are to occur, i cannot be responsible. i've a gut feeling this lesson will haunt me for a while, that God will point me to this and a few other miraculous saves in my life on a later date and say, "see? we've covered this. remember how I kept you then? well, you ain't seen nothin' yet!" {yes, God says ain't.} which is of course a rather disconcerting thought at the moment. if this is nothing...
but there it is. this is my life right now. i'm out of control. and what a paralyzing terror and overwhelming comfort is found in the knowledge that this is not my problem to handle. i'm not responsible. i don't "got" this one, and i never did. and that has to be enough...
{psalm 146}
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