I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, In Him I will trust.” Psalm 91:2 NKJV I

It was nearly midnight on a deserted stretch of Interstate in Alabama on the first day of a long road trip. Our goal was Mobile, Alabama, nine and a half hours from home. My husband, Dan, and I got out of our car at the top of an exit ramp that just happened to be ahead when the tachometer went crazy and the power died.

What I noticed first was the quiet and the stars. No traffic, no lights. No idea of where we were. And we had no clue about what had caused the bizarre behavior of our engine.

Thank goodness for AAA. I pulled the card from my purse and looked at the 800 number. They’d need to know where to find us. Hmm. I have to say the Holy Spirit prompted me here because I realized I could find our location through tracking on MapQuest, and after some searching, the person who answered the phone was able to find us on a map. Later, we got an automated call-back to say a tow truck would arrive in forty-five minutes.

Wow. Good news. We’d been stranded a while, but, hey, it was a miracle that we could reach someone in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and get any help at all.

Except the tow truck never showed up. After more calls to AAA, another truck was found—coming from Mobile, eighty miles away. Okay. At least we would go where we’d been headed anyway.

The fellows who hauled us south were great. I actually fell asleep on the bench seat behind the drivers for some of the ninety-minute trip. Our first stop was the dealership. Closed, of course, but it had a gate across the entrance. We left the car in an awkward position, but out of the way of traffic, and were graciously driven to our hotel where we checked in at six-thirty am.

What would you do at this point? Anything is fixable if you are willing to pay. But it was Saturday morning. How long would it take for mechanics to even diagnose the problem? Dan worked for a dealership once and knew the issues involved. We needed wisdom.

Prayer gave us peace to carry on, so I went to bed while Dan hitched a ride to the airport for a rental car. After a little sleep and a truly nasty waffle breakfast, it was check-out time. Six hours, if speeding, to Houston—where we would visit our grandkids.

I know our story is riveting (ha), but I’ll skip ahead through some details. By the time we left Houston on Wednesday, no one had looked at our car. So, with prayer and assurance that the LORD was in control, we drove on to our next stop which was Placitas, New Mexico, just north of Albuquerque, where my brother and sister live.

While we played in New Mexico, Dan had conversations with the service manager in Mobile. According to her, our clutch had blown to pieces. We needed a new one plus a new flywheel which couldn’t be found unless it was shipped from Germany. No one could say how long that would take because this was October of 2021 and all the news was about how virus restrictions were affecting everything.

Sobering news. But my brother who knows and loves German cars suggested something we would not have considered. Ship the car back to our foreign car mechanic in Greensboro, North Carolina, who we knew and trusted. Not as expensive as you might think (since the tow, without AAA, would have been several hundreds of dollars).

As the Bible would say, this seemed good to us. The bad news was that we’d have to go home by way of Mobile instead of a straight shot east because the rental car company wanted over $2000 to change our agreement. Ridiculous. The good news, however, was that we could turn this rental in as planned and rent another car from another company for a one-way, one-day, Mobile to Greensboro deal—less than $150.  

So that’s what we did. While Dan drove, I arranged for the vehicle shipper to pick up the broken car and haul it to our mechanic. We switched out rental cars at the Mobile airport and drove home.

What’s great about this trip is that we don’t remember it in a negative way. We had surprising setbacks and concerns about the cost, but also experiences of favor, joy, and peace. We did everything we had planned on our trip and enjoyed the people we love.

The key was that we didn’t feel alone. From the fact that we’d been prepared by listening to worship music just before the blow-up, to seeing scriptural promises fulfilled, it became an adventure that proved the presence and faithfulness of God.

Next time disaster strikes, I urge you to think about who is on your side. We might not be able to escape the circumstances, but as children of the Creator of the Universe, we can experience freedom in them.

Prayer: Thank you that you are our refuge and fortress. Our good Father. The one we can always trust.