When things go wrong...

Our family went on an RV trip this past weekend. As usual, we went and picked up our travel trailer a couple of days before our trip so that we could pack it and make sure we got everything tucked away just right for the trip. When we picked it up from storage we discovered that one of the tail lights that had been acting up and decided to stop acting and was completely dead. When you are driving a 30' long trailer, brake lights and blinkers are a tad important. Plus, our inspection was due for the RV, so we had to get this fixed.

If I am honest, I must admit that we don't really know what we are doing. We do the best job we can to keep things clean, tidy and kept up because we are pretty clueless as to what to do when things go wrong. We had already replaced the bulb on our last RV trip thinking that was the problem, but it wasn't. After a few calls and some searching on Google, we determined that we needed to replace the entire brake light assembly. Thankfully, a RV store nearby sold them, so we bought one. After we had the travel trailer in our driveway we changed out the light fixture, caulked it nicely to protect it from the elements and hooked up to see if it worked. It worked. We rejoiced.

After a couple of days of packing and planning, the day we were leaving on our trip came and we hooked up the RV, did our normal walk-around to make sure everything was working so that we could go get our inspection done, and the brake light was out. We plugged and unplugged the cord between the RV and the Suburban and nothing worked. Discussions ensued as to what we should do. Elliott and I process things differently. Let's just say, one of us sees the cup as half full, the other as half empty. During these types of situations it is like our two cups get dumped together, one containing orange juice, the other milk. Yeah. Not so pretty. We have been married for 12 years now and I have lately been noticing this trend. So, I have been asking the Lord to help me respond in a more godly way than I have been known to respond in the past. I have been asking God to give me grace to speak in loving and kind ways when the differences in our personalities are made very evident. After some brainstorming, we decided to head on our way, as the store where we purchased the RV was in the same direction and we could stop and ask for some help.

We were thankful and praising the Lord that we made it to the RV store safely and without incident. Elliott got inside and the folks in the store were helping to direct him to some items that might help him with diagnosing the problem. A man standing nearby overheard our dilemma and approached Elliott saying he was an electrician and could help him trace the problem. The two of them came out and the man went to work investigating our problem. He traced it to the breaker box in our Suburban, showed us how to test for things like that in the future and even gave us his tester. When Elliott and the man went back into the store to buy the new fuse, I turned to the children and said, "Isn't that wonderful kids, God sent and angel to help us."

A few minutes later, Elliott and the gentleman came back out with the new fuse. The man helped us by teaching us how to install the new fuse and made sure everything was working. Once he knew we were all fixed up, he said goodbye and went back into the store for the items he had originally come for. As Elliott was getting in the car I asked if he had offered to pay him. He had but the man had told him that he had everything he needed and was glad to help. Then Elliott told me that the man was with the Gideons and knew some folks from our church. The only reason he was at the store today was because his wife was at a women's prayer meeting at their church. So I turned to the kids and said, "God not only sent an angel, He sent a Gideon!"

We got our inspection done and after a few hours delay, we were on the road. The whole day we couldn't stop talking about how God had been so gracious to us. And I was so encouraged to see how God worked in my heart not to explode when things went wrong, but instead He caused me to choose to trust Him and His good purposes in the moment.