SERVICE ENGINE SOON

SERVICE ENGINE SOON----now there are three words you don't want showing up on your dash on the tail end of a week-long family vacation! But alas, yesterday, they did show up on mine...along with a revving noise and temperature gauge rising fast, in the middle of BFE Ohio, Beaverdam to be exact. Nothing there except a couple of truck stops and a whole lot of corn!

The kids and I coasted into the T/A Truck Stop( and honestly, T/A? could they not think of something a little less idk, suggestive?)...popped the hood, and then I proceeded to check dipsticks and fluid levels, trying to ascertain what exactly was up. A cursory inspection turned up nothing suspicious....at least to my untrained eye...(seriously, what the heck did I think I was gonna do if I actually did find something wrong...I certainly couldn't drop down and "weld" anything). While talking on the phone to my personal "car expert", a behemoth of a truck driver ambled up and stood quietly by until he could offer his services. Turns out he noticed my Michigan sweatshirt and actually lives only about 15 miles from me...he diagnosed some transmission issues with a quick look at the fluid color...(brown when it should be bright red), and found me a service station on his GPS. All the while, we talked about his truck driving career...which he started 5 years ago after a young woman broke his giant heart. He thought, wrongly, that driving a truck would help him forget how much he loved this woman. He didn't plan for the endless hours alone to think and rethink every aspect of the relationship, and the lonely days with little or no companionship at all. I didn't have much to say about all of that....except that you can't run from how you feel, and even when you want to change it, sometimes you can't.

Then I was off to the service garage...which didn't service anything but "big rigs". I thought my full mini-van should qualify...but nnooooo! The mammoth bald, tattooed skin head behind the counter did offer to call a couple of locals for me. Both of them were "just on their way to Sunday night church, but they would be glad to stop out in a couple of hours, after prayer meeting." The guy behind the counter snorted and kinda scoffed at that. He mused a little under his breath something about that being the thing about "those christian religious people" that didn't seem quite right. To his way of thinkin, helping someone with a need was what "those people" were "supposed" to do, isn't it? I treated the question as rhetorical.....but shoved off on my way, since apparently Jesus wasn't gonna drop by and turn my brown transmission fluid into wine anytime soon.

I made it home. But on the way, I thought alot about those two conversations. The first man was trucking because he was running from the pain someone else had inflicted, and he ended up more lonely than before, because he finds himself totally isolated and alone. The other guy doesn't claim to be a "religious" person, but seemed to understand what Jesus was about more than the folks on their way to Sunday night service. It made me think again about how He created us to be really....in relationship with Him and other people...to help other people along their journey when they need it...to just plain journey together with other people, some that we are closely intimate with and some who may just cross our paths occasionally. I found myself hoping and praying for more opportunities to just share life, and for the ability to discern the difference between "Sunday night church" activities and living the life He wants for me. The whole thing has made me think about how much my own engine needs servicing.....personally speaking.....all in all, my little car trouble is turning out to be a good thing for my heart....which has started to need some overhauling these days too!