Skip to main content

it started with a flat tire

 I live down a couple miles of dirt road. I love where I live--protected by the hills all around, tucked back where we have to cross the creek multiple times to get to our house--but it isn't the ideal place for my little Prius. While my tiny hybrid is an ideal vehicle for my 2-hour round trip every day, it isn't ideal for rough dirt roads, creek beds, and a driveway that winds through the field.


So it wasn't surprising when I had a flat. Frustrating, and a definite inconvenience when we got home Sunday evening, but not surprising. My husband was going to be volunteering at our kids' JR High track meet on Monday, which just happened to be in the town where I work, so we put off fixing it for the night and I just bummed a ride with him for work Monday. When we got home, then, Nathan jacked my car up and got the tire off. That process wasn't without it's own challenges (which I won't get into, but which involved my dad and the tractor), but it was done. My dad offered to go to the tire shop for us and offered his pickup for me to drive to work today. It was parked in the back corner of our yard where Nathan had unloaded the posts he had gotten to be able to finish fencing our yard, back in a section that gets pretty swampy in the spring rains, so last night he moved the truck to the other side of the yard where we park, pulling up behind our old truck that's not running.

This morning, we all left a little bit late due to a bit of a rough morning (teenagers... enough said). Nathan and the kids all piled into the Suburban and I went to climb into Pop's truck where I was greeted with an odd sight: a little red calf was standing up beside our old truck, very still. It took my mind a second to register what was wrong, but then it clicked--like the toddler that she is, the calf had stuck her head into the wheel well and gotten stuck there. I'm guessing there had been a cat up on the tire, probably one that had used that space as a hiding place from the 2-month old puppies we have running around right now. Whatever her reason, though, the poor thing was stuck tight. It took me pushing her forward while Nathan maneuvered her head for us to get her unstuck. Thinking back, when I had woken up to a calf hollering at 1 o'clock in the morning it was probably her I was hearing. So after about 6 hours standing with her head stuck, she was a bit dazed and shaky on her feet. She seemed fine otherwise, though.

Here's the thing--if I hadn't had a flat, we wouldn't have even seen that side of the old truck this morning. That poor calf would have been stuck until probably 4 this afternoon, which I can't imagine!

There's a familiar saying: "God works in mysterious ways."

Sometimes He uses flat tires to help a curious calf.



Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thoughts? I would love to hear them!
~Mandy

Popular posts from this blog

what's next?

My husband and I were talking to our kids the other day about how important it is for them to learn to stand for their beliefs and live the life God has called them to now, while it is easy. We were talking about how one day in the future, they will most likely be forced to either cave to the world or stand for God, and in that moment the decision will mean a whole lot more than just social standing. Right now, Christians in the United States have been given a reprieve. The election of Trump was honestly not something I expected. I've written for quite a few years now about the decline of our nation, and I know I'm not the first--or only--one to point out the downward spiral of morality that we've been seeing for decades. As a nation founded by men who claimed the protection of God, I truly believe we chose to be held to the standards of the covenants we entered. God keeps His side of His promises--the good and the bad. That means that broken covenants have consequences. Wh...
Post a Comment
Read more

light

  Our nation--and our world--is in a very dark place right now. Everywhere you turn, you see chaos, confusion, fear, despair, loss, and hopelessness. People are lost. People are broken. People are living with shame and regret, desperate to hide the parts of themselves they are afraid for other people to see. In their desperation to hide, they are running toward the darkness... " Still some people preferred the darkness over the light because their actions were dark. Some of humankind hated the light. They scampered hurriedly back into the darkness where vices thrive and wickedness flourishes." (John 3:19b & 20) When people are ashamed of their actions, they hide them in the dark. They don't want them exposed to the world--it would be embarrassing, humiliating for people to see all the things better left hidden. They cling to the darkness because they are afraid of what will happen if light shines on the things they are ashamed of. People fear things they don't kn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stand up and speak

 Pastor Allen Jackson recently said, "I think when you accept your Christian identity card for the Kingdom, you forfeit your neutrality with evil." In my writing here, I haven't been very vocal when it comes to politics. A quick count based on the "politics" tag shows 37 of 409 posts, so 9% through the years. Of those, I've been pretty diplomatic in my writing--encouraging you to do the research and exercise your right and responsibility to vote, no matter who you vote for. I've basically remained neutral...but I don't think that is something we can do any longer. If you listen to the loudest voices in our society right now, we as Christians should keep our beliefs out of our politics. We are told to keep quiet, and if we do on occasion try to speak up for biblical truths we are told that our words are hateful and bigoted. As a result, most of us have listened. We've pretty much agreed to sit down and shut up. It's past time for us to stand u...
Post a Comment
Read more