There are times we can be working with our hands and our minds will wander back to times where we learned how to apply what we are doing. Today I was working with Jane on a boat trailer. We inherited it needing everything except the frame replaced. The trailer had been stored on its side against a building for a few years. Today we decided to start working on it. We started on the wheels. The one wheel had been setting in the dirt so it had to be cleaned up. Both wheels were then sprayed with P-B Blaster inside and out. Then I walked down memory lane.
I had graduated high school and was no longer living with my mother and her husband. I was living with two people I have referred to as my foster parents because it is the only real way to explain the "type" of relationship we had. Our relationship started while I was in high school and became involved in the same church they attended. Anyway, back to memory lane.... I was up early to go to my dentist appointment. This was back before cell phones existed. We lived in the country. If I had to guess, I think I had to drive maybe 25 miles to my appointment passing through a smaller town maybe ten miles closer. I had gotten about seven miles away from home when one of the car tires went flat. No big deal. The weather was nice and I knew how to change a tire so I went about changing it. The only problem was when I got everything all set up, I could NOT budge the lug nuts off that darn tire no matter how hard I tried and I was no mouse. I kept working at it. I wasn't anywhere near civilization and cars few cars came by. I was on my own. It was up to me to figure this out. I had already resigned to not making my dentist appointment.
I am not sure how much time went by but as I kept struggling with this tire a truck pulled up behind me and I looked up and it was Pops. I was never so glad to see him. Initially he couldn't remove the lug nuts either. What I learned from him that day was how to gain more strength through leverage - extend the handle. Pops went to the back of the truck and pulled out pipe and slipped it over the handle on the lug wrench and grabbed the end of it and pulled. The tire got changed... we went home.
After I was late the dentist office had called to ask if I was going to make my appointment which then tipped off Mom and Pops something was wrong. The thing is, it never occurred to me that anyone would come looking for me. I believed I was on my own. Pops came looking. He wasn't looking for the car. He was looking for me. Their first thought wasn't, "Oh, she probably is out doing something she shouldn't be or she ran away". They were concerned because something must have happened TO me. For the first time in my life my mind and heart had to grasp and feel good about knowing someone would search after me. In my faith I knew God did but Pops gave me a tangible example of what it was to feel this on earth and every time I change a tire or need to use that little extra leverage trick of his, I think of that. And I remember the Shepherd who leaves His flock to search out His one lost sheep.
I had graduated high school and was no longer living with my mother and her husband. I was living with two people I have referred to as my foster parents because it is the only real way to explain the "type" of relationship we had. Our relationship started while I was in high school and became involved in the same church they attended. Anyway, back to memory lane.... I was up early to go to my dentist appointment. This was back before cell phones existed. We lived in the country. If I had to guess, I think I had to drive maybe 25 miles to my appointment passing through a smaller town maybe ten miles closer. I had gotten about seven miles away from home when one of the car tires went flat. No big deal. The weather was nice and I knew how to change a tire so I went about changing it. The only problem was when I got everything all set up, I could NOT budge the lug nuts off that darn tire no matter how hard I tried and I was no mouse. I kept working at it. I wasn't anywhere near civilization and cars few cars came by. I was on my own. It was up to me to figure this out. I had already resigned to not making my dentist appointment.
I am not sure how much time went by but as I kept struggling with this tire a truck pulled up behind me and I looked up and it was Pops. I was never so glad to see him. Initially he couldn't remove the lug nuts either. What I learned from him that day was how to gain more strength through leverage - extend the handle. Pops went to the back of the truck and pulled out pipe and slipped it over the handle on the lug wrench and grabbed the end of it and pulled. The tire got changed... we went home.
After I was late the dentist office had called to ask if I was going to make my appointment which then tipped off Mom and Pops something was wrong. The thing is, it never occurred to me that anyone would come looking for me. I believed I was on my own. Pops came looking. He wasn't looking for the car. He was looking for me. Their first thought wasn't, "Oh, she probably is out doing something she shouldn't be or she ran away". They were concerned because something must have happened TO me. For the first time in my life my mind and heart had to grasp and feel good about knowing someone would search after me. In my faith I knew God did but Pops gave me a tangible example of what it was to feel this on earth and every time I change a tire or need to use that little extra leverage trick of his, I think of that. And I remember the Shepherd who leaves His flock to search out His one lost sheep.