it was more than a car

So less than 20 minutes ago…I sold my car.  I’m kind of in a daze right now.  Six years ago, in May, I was scrambling around looking for a car.  My previous car had been totalled over Christmas break and I had to have a vehicle to drive while I was doing an internship living on the Crow Indian Reservation in south central Montana.  I was supposed to leave for Montana in less than 24 hours and nothing seemed to be going in my favor.  Then my mom suggested I try getting a new car, that was something she would feel much better about.  I was being pretty stubborn and hard set on buying a used SUV…a dream car if you will.  God had other…better plans for me it turned out.  He provided me with a brand new 2003 Saturn ION and I loved it from the get-go.  With help from my mom, an awesome first-time buyers program and God’s moving…I drove that car off the lot with 5 miles on the odometer and had just enough time to pack and get a good night’s sleep before taking off for a summer of the unknown. (major changes happened that summer)

 

 

6 years later, here I am…down to the wire…less than 2 days until I’m leaving DFW airport for Boston to meet up with the squad for the June ’09 World Race.  That car I just sold was an object that made me feel in control of everything.  I drove back and forth from Texas to Montana in that thing at least 3 times.  I put just over 14K miles on that car in the first three months alone while doing that internship.   One of my favorite things to help me destress was to take off on a road I’d never been down before and just look at what was out there.  Sometimes I would purposefully get lost (and yet somehow in the future, I would need to end up back at those very same places and it was a comfort to know where I was!!).  Most of the time I would get lost because frankly I have a horrible sense of direction.  I am a Dallas driver…’nuff said. 😉

 

I feel like without that car…it’s time to take off the facade.  That car meant much more to me than just being a vehicle to get around town.  That car was protection, a feeling of accomplishment, a symbol of power and wealth.  I’m not at all saying that having a car (old or new) is wrong.  But I’ll admit there were MANY times that I’d drive around and feel superior to other people for having one that wasn’t a total wreck.  I felt glad that I wasn’t one of those people that had to take the bus to get around everywhere.  I never said I was a saint.  I’m continually repenting and course-correcting my attitude.  God has been merciful in helping me to sell this car.  I know that there are others on the squad scrambling just like I was that day in 2003…feeling that insane crunch of time.  Feeling nothing but confusion and desparation, panic, fear, disappointment.  I felt clueless and directionless.  With everything else working out but not feeling like this one last piece of the puzzle wasn’t going to fit.  Talk about not making sense.  And then God moved.  His moving wasn’t something I earned.  He wanted me there in Montana even when I was second guessing and knowing that all my motives were out of complete selfishness.  I went to Montana not for the amazing opportunity, the experience, the learning…I was chasing a boy.  And yet  those months living in someone else’s home, learning rather than teaching, engaging in a completely different culture than my own…it was all out of God’s grace that I was blessed.  I don’t know the why behind it all…and the struggle it took to get there was chaotic…but letting go and trusting God more than myself was never a mistake.

 

So even though I am sitting in my mom’s house yet feeling “homeless” myself…even though I no longer have that luxury of turning the key and taking off for an unknown road whenever I feel like it…even though I don’t really know where I’m going or what I’m going to do every minute of the day…I’m letting go and trusting God more than myself.  And this will not be a mistake.