SOME EVERYDAY TESTIMONIES OF AN ORDINARY HOUSEWIFE

Chapter One

The Burning Station Wagon

"There must be something wrong with that light." At least, that seemed like the easiest answer. I filled the gas tank before we left, I even had the oil checked. The possibility of another car repair bill made me squirm. The red warning light mocked me from the dashboard.

 I continued the trip down Interstate 81 with an uneasy eye keeping watch on gadgets I usually ignored. The light went out. It came back on. Home was still an hour away. In the seat beside me, my daughter, Jordan, sang with the radio and played with her cell phone. She wanted to get home to watch her favorite show. A quick stop might be tolerated- as long as she could get an iced mocha latte.

 I looked in my rearview mirror to the back seat and saw Thomas stick his thumb in his mouth. He didn’t seem worried at all. His four year old mind had yet to learn such concepts as “doubt” and “danger”. Heck, he was probably watching the skyline for golden arches so he could chow some fries.

 A fight with my husband, Ed, weighted my mind. He’d be pretty ticked off if I had to call him for a roadside rig to get us home now. I shouldn’t have hung up on him when he called me at my mother’s house. He shouldn’t have yelled at me though.

 Maybe if I could get the car home he could change a belt or something. I pulled into the passing lane. Surely our family’s station wagon could go a little faster than the dump truck up ahead. As we tried to pass the truck, the temperature gauge bounced toward “H”. The car kicked into slow motion. Those sharing the road saw fit to pass on the right and I couldn’t get back over to the driving lane, much less the right shoulder of the road.

Steam seeped from underneath the hood. We couldn’t keep moving. Traffic to the right of us flowed without mercy and we were forced to rest on the narrow left shoulder of the highway. I popped my hood open and a rush of smoke poured out. I am no mechanic, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.

I called Ed. Jordan unbuckled Thomas and got him out. The shoulder of the road was about one roadkill skeleton wider than the car. I'd rather not further detail how I happened to gauge that fact.

 The legal speed limit on that stretch of highway is 65mph. Whoosh, this speed seems much faster when you are on a narrow patch of gravel between a busy highway and a ditch. Ed was at least an hour south. My parents were an hour north.

The smoke grew. We ran when we saw the fire. I'm not sure where we thought we were going, but we had to get away from a potential explosion. Thick black smoke. Flames. Nowhere to run. I never had a moment tell me more powerfully that there was only one thing to do. So we did it.

I stood on the side of Interstate 81 with my four year old son in my arms and my teenaged daughter at my side and we bowed our heads and prayed, "God, please save us."

We had barely lifted our heads when a pickup truck pulled off the road in front of us. He helped us in and took us to a safer spot on the other side of the highway. We watched from a distance as fire trucks came. Soon our car was another skeletal roadkill.

Thomas was shaking so much a State Trooper wrapped him in his jacket. A tow truck took what was left of our car. We got a ride to the nearest rest stop to wait for Ed.

At the rest stop the vending machine was kind to us. I think Skittles can taste like a miracle sometimes.

Then a mouse ran right past my feet and I screamed. Seriously? I have the nerve to be afraid of a mouse after this day? Yes. I'm sorry to say, I did. Thomas had the nerve to laugh at me for screaming. Jordan still wanted her latte. Ed and I would eventually get back to that fight. Our normal lives made a quick rebound. 

But when we got home that night Thomas burst through the door with an announcement he was excited to share, "We prayed and God saved us!"

And we keep praying. And He keeps saving us.

Amen!

As I later learned through the Book of Exodus, God got the attention of Moses through a burning bush. God gave Moses a mission, told him it would be hard, and He promised to be with him. Honestly, I sort of heard about that over the years but it never really sunk in. I couldn't tell you much about it. I can, however, tell you that as I sat in the back of a stranger's pickup truck- with my children safely beside me- watching the station wagon go up in flames, God certainly had gotten my attention.