It started drizzling again as I walked away from my car. I had pulled onto the grassy side of the long, empty farm road, unsure whether to abandon what safety I felt there, but had convinced myself to do so. (This was the “olden days,” before cell phones.) Knowing I couldn’t just sit waiting for help that may not come, I locked and left my vehicle behind me with its blown rear tire. Its flat, utterly flat, dumb back tire.
Wrapping my sweater closer, I made an attempt to both comfort myself and keep my dress from getting wet.
“Lord, please be with me,” I prayed. “You know what’s going on.” Pushing away ideas of being afraid, I talked with God instead.
I did have a plan, I thought. The rain fell harder and my high heels tapped and tripped along the gravelly, uneven lane, as I headed toward the highway about a quarter-mile back. Mark’s former high school teacher, Phil, lived with his wife in the house on the corner where I had just turned onto this back road, lined with tall cornfields. At least there I could use their phone.
This farmland route was the final leg of my daily, half-hour morning drive to work at Wesleyan Headquarters in Marion; coming in from the nearby town where Mark and I pastored. If it hadn’t been for cornstalks and gray fog I could have almost seen my destination across the level Indiana horizon. It might as well have been 100 miles away, however. Instead of soon pulling into a friendly parking lot, I was soggy, stepping around puddles in my muddy dress shoes, and leaving behind my car with its flat, utterly flat, ridiculous tire.
I knew Phil would help me - if he was home. “Please, please let him be there, Lord,” I begged out loud.
The rain only came down more heavily.
I was still a few yards from where the road intersected with the highway when a beat-up, rusty car with three scrappy men inside, turned off the main thoroughfare and drove very slowly past me. Lifting my head, avoiding their stares and attempting to look as if I was in control of whatever was happening, I picked up my wobbly speed.
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” I thought, not quite sure if I was telling them or myself. Looking back, I saw their dented sedan pull up beside my parked car and pause.
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” I stepped out of the tunnel of tasseled corn, just as an 18-wheeler blew past on the highway and obliged me with a gritty tidal-wave of water and dirt. By then, however, I had lost concern for how bedraggled I was. Waiting for a pause in the traffic I hurried across the wide road, down Phil’s rocky driveway, up two short steps and knocked on his front door. I thumped on his door. I pounded on his door. He wasn’t home. No one was home!
“Where could two retired folks go at this hour of the morning?” I asked God, but He didn’t see the need to explain. Still, Phil being home had been my best plan and looking out at the drenched fields and pastures in all directions, I was unsure of where to go next.
“What should I do now, Lord?”
I knew He was with me, but what other idea could there be besides the obvious answer of Phil being home? Was this one of those occasions when my Father wanted me to stop asking for help and do it myself? This was rarely my favorite lesson. (Sigh.)
“So, go fix your own silly, flat tire, Sharon! You know how!” I was talking aloud again. “Start walking, girl. You won’t get it done standing here.”
Praying for God to stay with me, I headed back across the highway. I reached the other side as that same beat-up, rusty car pulled up with three scrappy (getting scarier) men inside, staring at me. My heart dropped. They had turned around, somehow, and returned to where I was.
Rolling to a stop between them and me, however, was a well-worn, white pickup whose driver-side window was opening in spite of the rain. A round face with short curls and blue eyes appeared. “Is that your car back there, honey,” the woman’s voice called to me. Tears I’d been holding back choked my throat. “Yes,” was all I could muster.
“Come on, “she said, gesturing for me to come around and get in. “Let’s fix it.”
With immense relief I ignored the beat-up, rusty car at her rear bumper and crawled up beside her in the welcoming truck. I was an awful sight with plastered hair, mascara running down my face from rain and tears, sopping, splattered clothes and my grungy shoes. Apologizing for dragging the outside into her tidy pickup cab, she waved it aside. “It’s all going to be okay,” she promised.
She was a round lady in denim overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. She chatted kindly as if I were a dear friend. Crossing over to Phil’s driveway, we turned around to drive back to my car. When I apologized again for taking her out of her way, she smiled and told me she was just heading home from the factory night-shift and was an old-hat at changing tires.
Moments later as we were pulling the spare from my car trunk, that very same beat-up, rusty car crept up to us. They had once again turned around and come back! The scrappy, scary men stopped inches from where we stood and one of their doors swung open.
“Move on!” My sturdy friend in overalls called out loudly. It didn’t hurt that she was waving a tire iron in her hand. The door slammed closed and they finally drove away, splashing on down the narrow, empty road. I never saw them again.
To my great chagrin I didn’t learn her name that day, but I shall never forget her. She quickly changed my very flat tire, refusing to take money for coming to my rescue and getting mud on her overalls. After accepting my heartfelt hug and making sure my car was running, she disappeared, driving her pickup into the fog between the cornfields. I never saw her on that road again, either.
The Father’s plan hadn’t been obvious to me, at first. It often isn’t. Sometimes I must walk a long, dark stretch, determining to trust Him regardless of the unknown, scary things. But He has always been absolutely faithful to me, in spite of myself. That morning He even sent me an angel in a plaid shirt and denim overalls to remind me.
Psalm 121:8 “The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.”
Sharon Bardsley