That Darned Car

Did you ever feel like just when things seem to be going well, it seems as if life hits you up beside the head with a two by four? It is easy to get into a rut when things like this happen, I know, I kind of hit it recently.

I have been going through training with Youth Horizons, a program that works with fatherless children. It has been somewhat difficult lately, I am doing 2 jobs, trying to be a husband, and father, on top of living life and getting all of the things done I need to get done for the Holidays. To be blunt, sleep as of late has been a commodity. Unfortunately I am starting to feel it, and those things that hit me up beside the head hurt even more so because of all of the stress, and other issues related to just plain, flat out, being tired.

The other day I was involved in a Girls Town and Boys Town Training with Youth Horizons when my cell phone rang about 3:15 PM. It was a tough call, but I made the decision to let the person calling leave a message as opposed to disrupting my training by answering the phone. I have always had some issue with taking personal calls during work time. Doing ministry, knowing that important calls come in at times with The Virtual Pew made it difficult to not answer the phone, but that was my decision.


One of the worst case scenarios was I would receive an emergency phone call from one of my family members. Needless to say, the phone call was from my wife. Things weren’t good! The car she was driving had broken down, and she didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know how to respond exactly because we didn’t know the seriousness of the breakdown. The car was left on the side of the road, and one of the possibilities was a cracked head. Of course that was the worst case scenario, and the one we were praying wasn’t the case. Truth is, money is tight, and as much as we appreciate the funding that is coming in with Youth Horizons, we still need the income from The Virtual Pew as the expenses are still there. The last thing we need is an additional car expense, especially during the holidays. Well as of this writing we still don’t know the details, we know we need a water pump, and work done on the timing chain. The job in total could run from $400 to over $1,000, the cost will be very difficult, but the high end of the cost will be prohibitive, and put us in the place of having one van, almost ready to break down, and that is it. In other words we will have to do something we didn’t want to do, check and see about buying a new vehicle. I could write all kinds of thoughts on that but will let that rest for another time.

During the holidays we often get caught up in so many things that we forget about those who struggle from week to week. What is really sad is that one has to go through the difficulties of a car breaking down or some other catastrophic event to be reminded of this. I wish I could be like Jesus all of the time, always aware of the needs of others around me, aware of the difficulties that people are going through. I think it is important to reflect on the events of our own lives to remind us of others who have it worse. Truth is; it is always easy to find someone having a harder time than we may be experiencing.

During the holiday season I will ask each person reading this to not only think of those in need, but think of those agencies supporting and/or helping those in need. While The Virtual Pew is one of those ministries, we aren’t the only one. There may be a homeless shelter in your community, a drug treatment program, a women’s shelter or any other number of ministries providing help to those in need. Find a way to be like Jesus, find a way to help the individual, or those who are helping, it does make a difference, especially to those already experiencing a tough time. I will ask you to do something else though, look at those agencies who need, and will put to work the gifts you give them. I know there are a lot of larger wonderful agencies but a lot of those agencies have so many volunteers, so much money, the truth is, they don’t need more. The smaller agencies though, especially those who don’t receive government funding will be those that may be able to get the biggest bang for the buck, consider them, then realize, you may just be helping out someone who needs it, someone who would have otherwise done without during the time they needed help and love the most.


A Broken Down Car? It could have been worse. Click the Video below, if the video don't appear, just click the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0CYiFlPsIc




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