“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” (Ecclesiastes 11:1)
One summer my daughter and I took a traveling vacation together. Our son loaned us his second-hand car but warned us that he couldn’t guarantee a trouble free trip. As we started the trip, I prayed that God would go with us and if we were meant to have car trouble, please send us some caring Christians to show us kindness in the work and the price of repairs.
We left Middle Georgia and headed to Columbia, SC to visit my brother. Everything worked fine on the first day of our trip. The second day, the motor began to cut off on us occasionally, but would crank easily after we let it “rest’ a bit. After a night with my brother and his wife, we headed for the Coast of North Carolina to visit my sister. Still few problems. After spending two nights with my sister, we received a telephone call that my Dad’s sister had died, so we took the northern route from Eastern NC across to Kings Mountain to attend the funeral. Going down the interstate, the motor began to sputter and skip. What to do now? I sent up a silent prayer for wisdom to know just what to do about that problem and how to do it best. The next exit came up quickly. I advised my daughter to pull off there so that we could find a service station with a mechanic and try to find the problem with the car.
Neither of us had very much money with us. I prayed earnestly that we would find an honest mechanic that would not make us wait too long to “fix” the car. God heard and answered in a marvelous way. The station that was the first one off the interstate not only had a repair bay, but the owner of the station was there. He agreed to take the time to look at the car and see if he could help and urged the two of us to go inside the station where his wife was sitting to get out of the heat and have refreshments while he worked on the car.
I began to witness to the wife and found that not only were she and her husband Christians, but they belonged to a church in which my husband had preached many times when we lived in Eastern North Carolina. They remembered having heard him preach.
They practiced Ephesians 4:32 “Be ye kind….” that day for not only did the husband put us ahead of other cars he had waiting for repairs, but he only charged us what the part cost him – no profit on the part and no cost for the labor.
You might say I was “ye of little faith” that day. I just could not believe that not only was the first station we came upon just off the interstate situated right where our ailing car could make it for help but the owners knew my preacher husband and treated us so royally for his sake.
Isn’t our God great in his Promise Keeping? I asked not that God would keep us from trouble, but that if we were to have trouble He would send us kindness in the midst of trouble. He not only took care of our financial needs, but sent us new friends to cheer us on the way also.
God promised, “I will be with thee” and He was. Praise his Name.
Audrey Mullen