This isn't exactly what you want to see on a twelve hour drive to Colorado with five couples, mountains of luggage, ski equipment and two cars. The day started so well with us all piled in for the long haul with an early start of 6 a.m. (and yes, this is the one time a year I actually view 6 a.m.) but, alas, on mile 514 of 780 in the middle of Goodland, Kansas, there were disturbing fumes emanating from one of the cars. Hmmm....I'm not exactly a car person, but even I know you don't want to be headed to the snow-covered mountains surrounded by the fumes of burning oil. Apparently the good old boys at the Napa auto parts store informed us that there was an issue with the axles and the only way we could continue our trip was with the removal of two of the axles thus leaving us with a 2-wheel drive vehicle in the snow-capped mountain passes. This is, of course, the girl version that I managed to understand when, two hours later, the boys were loading a box of auto parts that used to be within the vehicle and were now simply riding alongside the suitcases and ski equipment. As the females in the group, we simply looked out the window at the suddenly somber group of males staring under the hood of a car and then made our way to the local diner for ice cream and apple pie. The men eventually joined us after coming to the realization that staring at the NAPA boys wasn't going to make the work go any faster. So my thanksgiving in this rather dreary story? First of all, we were all safe. Secondly, one of the men on our trip actually sells and works on cars so he was a huge blessing. Third, the car could actually be patched-up enough to continue on our journey with a relatively short delay. And lastly, (and the one that filled my heart with joy in otherwise frustrating circumstances) I realized what a blessing it is to be surrounded by Spirit-filled people when expectations aren't met and unforeseen difficulties come your way. Now we had a whole myriad of personalities and some of them were a bit more high-strung that the others, but everyone spoke with kindness, enjoyed our time together over milkshakes and pie, and never lost our tempers. It really is a blessing to be stuck in the middle of the Kansas prairie land, watching the time tick by delaying our arrival to the mountains, with people who know Christ and understand that the journey of life is just that- a journey with disappointments, frustrations, joys, and successes but all under the loving hand of our shared Heavenly Father.
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