Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Key: Important, Fundamental {Intuition Diaries}

He will be the sure foundation for your times,
a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure. 
Isaiah 33:6 NIV




Why, the question often asked when there is no evident reason for a particular event. Why did this happen to me? Why did it happen now? Questioning of this nature can become an exercise in frustration. Possibly a better, more important question would be how I can respond to such and such situation.

When I go on a vacation, my expectations are at full throttle. My objective is to get to the destination, so we can relax. Leave behind the cares of daily, routine life. Take a break from asking why all the time. Just rest and take in the new landscape. 

My husband and I left early Monday morning for our long awaited trip to the Erie Canal. We made it to Cleveland with our boat and belongings towing smoothly behind our truck.

Tuesday morning, we got a little lost getting out of Cleveland, but once we got back on track, we were on schedule to be at the marina in Buffalo that evening. We had squeezed through the construction zones, talking about the day ahead and just watching the road pass behind us, when we heard a ka-thump. Les slowed us down and pulled off onto the wide shoulder. I said, what happened. He said, I think we lost a tire.

He carefully climbed out of the driver’s seat to inspect the damage. The report: one of the dual axles was bent and a tire was stripped of its tread. We called a towing agency. But our boat was too tall to put on a truck. They gave us a number for a nearby repair place, twenty miles away. Our options were not looking good. Les removed the tire and we hoped there might be a repair place at a marina in the next town a few miles ahead.

Amazingly, we remained fairly calm through the whole ordeal. (As you can imagine, in these types of situations tempers tend to flare.) We needed some other tools that were locked in the boat. So I went to get the boat keys out of the truck. Um…Les, did you put the keys somewhere else.  Um…no.  I…think we left them at home. Why would we do such a stupid thing? When packing for a big trip we live by checklists, but apparently neither of us thought to put the keys on the list.

We could have spent all day asking why did this happen, but instead for some reason I started thanking God for the things that were good: for the wide shoulder, because we had just left a constricted construction zone, for our son being available to overnight the keys to us and for the nearby marina having a repair shop so we didn't have to drive twenty miles on a broken trailer. Our plans are delayed, but as the repair guy said, “It could have been worse.”

When I was telling my mom about our adventure, she said God was with you. And then I realized that this particular day was not like any other day in life. Things happen. We don’t really know why, but God is with us. He provides what we need in each situation.

This post is the first in a series, I will be calling the Intuition Diaries, where I will confess our blunders and share our adventures on the Erie Canal. (At the end of the day, I jokingly told my husband the reason for our hardship was my fault, because I wanted something interesting to post on the blog . . . *smile*)


picture of the Intuition from a previous adventure




11 comments:

  1. God was indeed with you, each step of the way. I don't know why these things happen, Kel (and maybe sometimes we never will), but they do cause us to lean on God, and we discover afresh: He is faithful.
    I'm so glad things worked out.
    Love you!
    Lynni

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  2. I have to agree with my sister-in-law! Praying that you all will have a blessed vacation and we will see you when you get home.
    Denise Morrissey

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    1. Hey Denise, nice to see you here. I had forgotten that you and Danny know Kel. Do you follow her blog regularly?
      Lynn

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    2. Denise- thanks for the prayers!

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  3. See what happens when we want those blog posts? Lol. Your mom is a wise woman. Glad you kept grace at the forefront of it all.

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    1. Dawn- yep, gotta be careful what we wish for...but truly God kept us calm because normally these kinds of things can be trying.

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  4. Hey Kel! Glad to hear you had a wide shoulder and you made it in for repairs....Praying you guys have smooth sailing ahead....It's fun to cruise along beside you! Missing you here!
    Hugs,
    Kelly

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    1. Miss you, too! We finally our on the water today...more tales to come! thanks for the prayers!

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  5. So glad y'all were okay AND that you had such a gracious attitude about the whole thing!

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    1. Thanks, Jen! God was definitely granting the peace and it only took one day for them to fix the trailer. Amazing grace!

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