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Was it a Miracle?

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen

Here's a story I told a few people and wanted to share with y'all. When my father died, I received some money from a trust fund or something. I put it toward a 2003 Hyundai Accent and considered it his last material gift to me. It was a good car for about eight years.

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One day, it wouldn't start. I called the AAA service and they sent someone out. (Couldn't get it to my usual mechanic.) "No, it's not a dead battery, the starter went bad", or words to that effect. It was towed, starter replaced, I paid a lot of money. A few months later, it acted up again, and it was towed to the same service facility. A wire fell off, and I had to pay for that as well. Then a third time, same problem, but they didn't charge me for the repair that time.

At this point, the owner of the facility told me there was a problem in the frame. Essentially, it was rotting out from the inside, and he said flat out that he wanted to sell me another car. I seriously doubted that he was being fully honest, especially after the botched repairs and their reputation on the street.

Later, something was going bad in the exhaust, so I took the car to my regular mechanic (who originally sold it to me) and gave a "by the way, this other guy said the frame underneath is bad" thing. He took a look and said the car was not worth fixing. More than that, it was dangerous because a broken frame means the wheel falls off while driving. Just be careful and don't hit potholes, especially big ones going fast. This happened in late March in New York, near Kingston. Spring is trying to arrive, and potholes are becoming craters that would make make the moon envious.

I got to work on obtaining a used car loan for something the mechanic/dealer suggested that I could afford, but he had to do a repair, state inspection, and other things before he could sell it to me. Okay. During one of my calls to him, I asked how I should dispose of the old car. He told me, "You can bring it here, I have a few others that need to be taken away for scrap". Great, everything seems to be covered.

All that background on how I got into that position (partly from being skeptical of the other repair place, and also the strange way the frame rusts from the inside out), now I can get to the good part.

Being extremely careful and nervous, I was pulling out of the workplace and hit a small pothole. Something gave a small snap. Suddenly, instead of holding the steering wheel in the standard "nine and three" clock points position, I was doing eleven and five. Snap decision: only a few miles, even though the road is a two-lane highway and has some hills. I'll drive it out to the mechanic's place — if I make it.

Driving well below the speed limit with the four-way flashers going and on the shoulder of the road as much as possible, there was a squealing noise. My heart was pounding! I prayed, of course. But I got there and pulled into his lot. He came out and looked underneath and said, "It's a miracle you got here!" I could just imagine an angel under the car holding onto the part so it lasted that final trip. (Wonder if it's the same angel I pictured that held my tie rod in place when I was ramming around at high speed, and then broke when I got off that highway?)

Well, I was blessed several ways: I had a warning that the car would probably break, so I was careful and didn't hit a pothole at a high speed. Next, arrangements were made. Third, I was blessed with a safe trip. (I don't want to die because of a car problem, I'd rather be taken out by a hit man hired by an angry atheist that hates being confronted with his incoherent worldview. Then I'd be a martyr or something. Maybe even get 72 raisins in Heaven.) Fourth, something I didn't tell you, the dealer was about to leave for the day when I pulled in. I was going to sit and wait for my wife to pick me up in a couple of hours, but he was not only leaving, but had to go to Kingston, so I had a ride home.

Can I prove blessings and miracles? Not hardly! Do I believe God was watching over me, not only that day, but the days previously? You betcha!