Gods name......

So this is part three of my little "Changes" posts and as I mentioned at the bottom of the post, there was a story behind the purchase and sale of our vehicles. I testified about this in church the other night, not because I was glad to have a new car, but because of the following:

You know how some times there is a little thing that you pray about.....sort of just throw a pray up to God and think that it would be awesome if this prayer was answered (ok - that sentence was just full of faith wasn't it???? :o)) And think how inconsequential this prayer request is compared with what some people are praying for??? Yep - this was one of those prayers. So - on with the story.......


Scott and I have been talking for almost a year now about switching out the Pathfinder and the truck to only have one vehicle. Meaning - we wouldn't have to watch the truck sit in the garage, collect dust, and not get used but once or twice a year when Scott needs to go to the dump. As well as being used for a storage dump while sitting in the garage. (Can you tell this was MY little pet peeve - Scott didn't care!!!) At any rate - we wanted a vehicle that would fit all 4 of us (the truck could only fit three......barely), could be used to haul stuff to the dump or home from Lowes, was comfortable for me to drive as it would be my primary source of transportation, and not drive like a truck. Long list of wants and where the heck do you find all of that??? Hence the reason we'd been talking about it for a year and not really done anything about it. We tossed around several different options and my only stipulation was that Scott couldn't lift it because otherwise I wouldn't be able to get in and out easily.

Enter the Ridgeline........

After talking about different trucks, Scott's dad mentioned the Honda Ridgeline and how reliable, safe, etc. it was and so we looked at it, etc., talked about it - whatever. Some friends of ours at church actually had one so we asked if we could test drive it sometime to see if it was something we would want to purchase. Well about a month went by and we never test drove it or anything, but then around the end of January-beginning of February - our friend approached Scott and told him he was wanting to get rid of it and did we want to test drive it or maybe purchase it. Hmmmmmm. That was a Sunday night.

Monday night Scott set up a time with our friend to test drive the truck. We drove it and LOVED it so started talking about what we needed to do financially to pull this off. Of course part of that was the need to sell not just one vehicle, but two vehicles. This was where my little prayer thrown up to my Savior comes in because I just didn't want to have to sit on two used cars and have this HUGE payment hanging over our heads, etc. So I prayed that God would help us to sell those vehicles for what we needed to sell them for and FAST. So by Tuesday night we were in the bank setting up what we needed to purchase the Ridgeline - getting all of that squared away. Meanwhile, I wrote up a couple of brief ads for the cars on Word and just left them on the desktop for Scott to deal with.

Wednesday night: Scott had been invited to a Manager appreciation night at the Walking with the Dinosaurs presentation in Portland and so we got home later than usual - like around 9:50/10:00. As soon as we got home, Scott posted the ads for the cars on Craigslist.com and we left it at that. Get the kids ready for bed, brushing the teeth, put the kids in bed, sitting in bed looking at a magazine while Scott takes "the girls" to the bathroom outside when.........dun dun dun duhhhhh.........the phone rings! Ummmm Hello!!! It's like 10:45 at night - who the heck calls at 10:45 at night?????? Not a number I recognize, but I answer it anyway in case its an emergency. Its not. It's a guy saying......."I'm calling about the Toyota truck on Craigslist.".............huh??? Scott JUST posted it......like not even 15 minutes before. He wanted us to meet him the next morning. Ummmmm Ok.

Now at this point the thoughts of Hmmmmm - is this guy for real or do we need to be worried about this.... are going through our heads. Scott let him know we couldn't meet first thing in the morning because we had an appointment at the bank to buy the Ridgeline but could meet him around 11:00 or so. He said that would work and we set up to meet him halfway from his house and our house, which was about a 45 minute drive for each of us. Ok so we go to bed just looking at each other and laughing like - yeah right - this guys isn't for real, but ok we'll go along with it.

Thursday: Go to the bank, and get everything taken care of with the Ridgeline. Yeah!!! We are so excited, but can't drive it to the meeting place cuz we'd have to switch out the car seats and stuff and we just didn't have time for that. Drive to meet the guy and guess what........he's late. So now the thoughts are REALLY going through our heads. Scott calls him and he's stuck in traffic but should be there in about 15 minutes. We wait..........and wait.........and wait......for what seems like a long time but was really only about 25 minutes and he finally shows up. Goes through the whole look at the truck, test drive it, look under the hood, etc, etc., and takes Scott across the parking lot to the bank where he decides to buy the truck. Ok so I drive in the Pathfinder over to the other side of the parking lot to sign the title over, get out, get the kids out, and sign the title. As we're walking out of the bank the guy starts asking me about the Pathfinder, how long we've had it, how many miles, do I like it, any problems, etc., and I'm just answering his questions with this bewildered look on my face. And all of a sudden he offers Scott a deal on the Pathfinder. HUH???? He just bought the truck and now he wants the Pathfinder too???? Of course what he offered was ridiculous and I looked at Scott and shook my head. But in the end...........they settled on an amount and he bought the Pathfinder!!!! Whoa!

Of course we had to drive back home to get the title and another vehicle because otherwise we wouldn't have a way home and on the way home we just kept looking at each other like....."that was the most bizarre thing that's ever happened to us before and ONLY God could coordinate something like that." How else do you explaing something like that? We could have never orchestrated that - even in our wildest dreams never would have imagined the same guy buying both of our vehicles....and in ONE day! Whew!

Needless to say it was a VERY LONG day, and by the end I think we all felt like we'd been hit by a Mack truck, but it was a day that God had set apart just for us - and had answered my little prayer - when I'm sure He had lots of other bigger prayers He could have been answering.

As Sophie said a while back.......Jesus loves me, this I know........and I DO know - cuz He cares about the little things in my life!!! And there's the story about the cars. Sorry it was so long, but its worth the read.