Encounters with the Answer to a Prayer

Okay, I had the weirdest set of circumstances happen to me on Wednesday. This is convoluted and long, but stick with me, it's a good story.

Fiona's husband called my room at school and asked if I would make a deposit for him. I had planned on going to meet Mrs. C. at the gym, but she had cancelled, so I decided that I'd help him out. I was tutoring a student who had his nose re-broken and wasn't able to be at school for a few days. After regaling the student on the awesomeness that is rational exponents, I left the school.

When I got to the middle of town, I realized that I'd left the deposit that Fiona's husband, Shrek, had left in my box, so back to the school. Well, I rolled on past the interstate back to my town. Once I got into town a man started making strange motions and honking his horn. He seemed to be pointing towards my passenger-side front tire. After analyzing whether or not he was mentally stable, I decided that my tire could be blowing up, unbeknownst to me. At that juncture, stopping to check it out seemed to be the smartest thing to do. I pulled in to a parking lot where there was no one. There was also no light. When I got out and saw that my tire was fine, I thought, "What the ?"

In a matter of seconds, the same man drove up and before I knew it, he was underneath my car, doing something to maybe the tie-rod end. He was a small, wiry man. He asked me if I'd heard any loud noises and I told him no, but that there was no guarantee something hadn't happened, because being a high-school teacher, I tend to ignore weird sounds. He laughed. I told him that a street I travel on to school is riddled with pot holes. He, after fixing the passenger side problem, proceeded to roll up under my driver-side front tire. He couldn't see. Then he asked me to move the car, carefully, to the Waffle House. Since it was more populated and it had more light, I was 90% sure he was legit.

When I got in my car, I did call my friend, Dude, and told him if he didn't hear from me in ten minutes, to alert the authorities. This greasy, wiry man went under my car and found that the bushing was totally destroyed. He demanded to go to the auto parts store and get this part and replace it. I was slightly wary until he told me that that was just how his daddy raised him. Plus, he said, if his daughter or wife were out having the same problem, he'd want someone to help them. He said that the bushing would be $28.

I suggested that I just have my friend come pick me up, make the deposit that brought me this way, and then run by the ATM to get dude his money. This seemed satisfactory to him, so off he went. Then Dude came, picked me up, and took me to the ATM. It all went off without a hitch.

Again, he agiley dodged under the wheel and replaced the bushing. He told me that he and his wife had been together since they were 15 and 16. He has two sons who are grown and an 11-year-old daughter who is very smart and has him wrapped tightly around her little finger. What a nice guy!

I was a little wigged out the entire time this was happening. But I just was amazed at how this thing fell together and got slightly less weirded out as it progressed.

When I got home, I began thinking about the events that had to be aligned for this to work out as perfectly as it was. Had Mrs. C. not cancelled the workout meeting, had Shrek not asked me to make a deposit for him, had I not forgotten the deposit upon my initial leaving, and had I not had trouble with my hubcaps and taken them all off, the greasy guardian angel wouldn't have been there at the time and been able to see what was going on inside where my tire was.

I am so thankful that God orchestrated the set of circumstances necessary to let all of this happen. Don't tell me that miracles don't occur. Don't tell me that God is watching us from a distance, as the song says and isn't concerned with even the smallest things in our daily lives. If it's important to us, it's important to God. Oh yeah, did I tell you that my helper told me if I'd hit a pot-hole or something just right, it would have sheared off the bolt and my wheel would have come off. That couldn't have ended well. But it did. Thanks to my mechanically-inclined guardian angel!