red sea moments...

So, I'm standing again between the Red Sea and the approaching Egyptian army. The only way I can survive is for God to step in and save me.

I remember standing in this same spot a few years ago. Well, more like 11 years ago...

Jason and I were in college. We had a baby. We were full-time students with part-time jobs which equals like... no money. Well,... no extra money. We were down to one car.

We each had a car when we got married. They were very used cars, but they were paid for. I drove a Volkswagen Fox which we had to sell because it needed repairs we couldn't afford. So, down to 1 car...Jason's black, two-door 1989 Ford Escort GT. Great car... if you don't worry about the smell of exhaust leaking into it as you drove. or the lack of air conditioning when you drive to a July wedding an hour away. or the way-too-jiggly steering wheel that might or might not just come out of the steering column and freaked my father-in-law out. or the fact I couldn't get it into reverse (it was a stick shift). I remember parking on campus in slightly uphill slanted parking spaces, so I could just put the car into neutral, open the driver side door, and push the car with my left foot just enough to get it backing out. Unfortunately, there were times I couldn't be picky with parking spaces, and I found myself having to get out of the car, pushing it out of the parking space from the front end, then hurrying up to jump back into the driver's seat to control it before I backed into a car. Jason never had a problem putting in into reverse...but it really didn't work for me! Things got bad enough that I tried to bike to campus. Not a bad idea if I didn't have a toddler in the baby seat who dropped her sippy cup several times on the way to her babysitter or a backpack filled with textbooks for a day's worth of classes or a several mile long commute.

At the time this was all happening, some very close friends of ours were surviving some pretty rough stuff. One of their parents had just died in a car accident.

We got along great with our friends...we shared the same interests...garage sales, sports, ER, youth ministry...and, we were in the same financial situation...not much finances for a lot of situations!

So, they were going through sad stuff, we were going through car stuff. We knew we couldn't afford anything besides bus fare. We prayed and prayed that God would provide us with a car for a great deal.

How great a deal we wouldn't know until....our friends said they wanted to
give us...
GIVE us...
GIVE us their car. Because of the accident, they were given some extra money which they used to buy themselves a new car, so they had an extra one.

It was an awesome car. It was super cool. It was an automatic. It went into reverse. It had air conditioning. They could've sold it to get some extra money (What young married couple couldn't use some extra money?) but they didn't. They said they felt led by God to give us their car.

God provided. And that's one of my Red Sea Moments...