jolts in the road
We had some serious car problems happening last week with the check engine light on and the mechanic did several small things over several days to fix it, but it came back on earlier this week. I talked to my uncle (a mechanic on the opposite side of the country) about it, got a part ordered and was told to drive it as little as possible until the part came. A few days ago, our little A woke up from her nap with a burning fever that only got worse, and I had to take her to the doctor to be checked about 10 minutes away. I knew the car would be fine, and it was...until I was headed back home with a sick baby and a prescription I hoped would help. The car began doing what it did when the check light came on: jolting and shaking under me, especially during faster highway speeds. It would only happen for a second, stop a while, then go again for a second. I found myself praying so hard out loud to just make it home, and the thought came to me almost instantly "I know I will get home. I know Heavenly Father will get me home." I had literally no doubt. I was totally calm and comfortable as I sang and talked to A as we drove home.
Soon after this happened I was thinking about the stress that I had felt, but then overwhelming peace that came right after I began to pray. I KNEW that we would get home, I knew it. There was no way it wouldn't happen. But I had also briefly had the thought that if I didn't get home, I knew 100000% that there would be a very good reason for it.
A connection kind of came together in my head as I was thinking about this. There are a lot of jolts in life. There is just way too much shaking, sometimes. There have been so many times when my stomach has dropped because the jolting begins, and I'm not sure I'll make it home. There have been times that everything is shaking around me, harder than my car has ever shaken, and I can only begin to pray that I will make it through to the other side. I have lost a brother, a baby, an uncle, a grandparent who was really a third parent. I have impoverished family who I can't help, I have family members and friends so turned from the Lord that there is dark in their eyes, I have had a baby and thought I would never feel comfortable, in control of my life again, outside of some small moments.
I have fallen to my knees quite literally because I couldn't stand with the pain anymore. I have been shaken and twisted and I have listened — sometimes, I have really listened and believed — the voice that says I won't make it home, that the car won't stop shaking or jolting or breaking down until I am left on the side of the road forever.
I know that that is never true.
I know that I will make it home. I know that. But sometimes, we need the car to shake to remember that we have survived that very same thing before. Sometimes, we need the car to do everything bad it's ever done—or even to break down for a minute—to realize that we will make it through. We will get home eventually, even when it feels like we will probably never drive a car that functions properly, ever.
He can and will and always DOES get us through the rough and the bumpy and the jolty and scary and the windy and the rainy and the downpour of all of the things that happen that we have to survive to be our best. I don't often know why the car must jolt, just that it must. He can calm the storms of our life just as He calmed the storms for the apostles to witness. I love Him. And I know there's nobody who will get me and my baby and all my people home, but Him.
Soon after this happened I was thinking about the stress that I had felt, but then overwhelming peace that came right after I began to pray. I KNEW that we would get home, I knew it. There was no way it wouldn't happen. But I had also briefly had the thought that if I didn't get home, I knew 100000% that there would be a very good reason for it.
A connection kind of came together in my head as I was thinking about this. There are a lot of jolts in life. There is just way too much shaking, sometimes. There have been so many times when my stomach has dropped because the jolting begins, and I'm not sure I'll make it home. There have been times that everything is shaking around me, harder than my car has ever shaken, and I can only begin to pray that I will make it through to the other side. I have lost a brother, a baby, an uncle, a grandparent who was really a third parent. I have impoverished family who I can't help, I have family members and friends so turned from the Lord that there is dark in their eyes, I have had a baby and thought I would never feel comfortable, in control of my life again, outside of some small moments.
I have fallen to my knees quite literally because I couldn't stand with the pain anymore. I have been shaken and twisted and I have listened — sometimes, I have really listened and believed — the voice that says I won't make it home, that the car won't stop shaking or jolting or breaking down until I am left on the side of the road forever.
I know that that is never true.
I know that I will make it home. I know that. But sometimes, we need the car to shake to remember that we have survived that very same thing before. Sometimes, we need the car to do everything bad it's ever done—or even to break down for a minute—to realize that we will make it through. We will get home eventually, even when it feels like we will probably never drive a car that functions properly, ever.
He can and will and always DOES get us through the rough and the bumpy and the jolty and scary and the windy and the rainy and the downpour of all of the things that happen that we have to survive to be our best. I don't often know why the car must jolt, just that it must. He can calm the storms of our life just as He calmed the storms for the apostles to witness. I love Him. And I know there's nobody who will get me and my baby and all my people home, but Him.
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