Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The Phoenix Rises, Again

Someone must be praying over my blog.

Last night, as I was taking out the trash, I saw our old '77 Phoenix sitting on the grass, where Joel, Paul and I had pushed it out of the way — it took all three of us — so that we could paint the shed. I'd been trying to get it running again for months — years? — now, and I was just about ready to call the junkyard to come and get it.

Maybe moving it to a different place will have made some difference, I thought, as I deposited my trash, and walked over to look at it wistfully. I banged the passenger door open and closed a few times. But even if it did run, how would I keep the door shut? On a whim, I punched the lock knob down — that's how old this is thing is, it has little plungers for the locks — and gave the door a half-hearted swing. It closed. And locked.

Whoa.

How many times had I tried that before? A hundred? Two hundred times? Why did it work this time? I silently vowed never to open that door again.

If that worked, maybe I should try starting it again. I slunk into the driver's seat with some apprehension.

Chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy.

I paused in a sad way.

Chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-boom-boom-shibbidy-boom chibbidy.

Wait, what was that?

Chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-shibbidy chibbidy-boom-shibbidy chibbidy-boom-boom-shibbidy-boom chibbidy. Chibbidy-shibbidy-boom boom-boom-boom chibbidy-boom-boom badbadabadabada-ROOOOOOOOOM.

Black soot scorched the grass. A great foul cloud enveloped the landscape. The beast roared. And I sat there, scared. Dear God, it started. It runs. The door closes. What does that mean? What's going to happen that I need to have this thing running? My eyes were wide with amazement and incomprehension. I drove it around the block a few times, scarcely daring to believe.

I started to head out to put some fresh gas in it, but it occurred to me that Deborah thought I was just taking out the trash. So I headed back inside. After supper, it started again, and I got some input from my car-parts store on a good course of action to deal with the after-effects of a long dormant period. (Turns out the guy restores old Moto Guzzis. We swapped stories.) Two of the guys came out of the shop just to have a look at it. That's a great old car, they said.

Yeah.

3 comments:

Beautifully Profound said...

The Lord must have a love for classic cars.

Carolyn Kerr said...

Truly amazing. We pray over your general financial situation, yes, but I don't recall praying over your car specifically.

Anjuli said...

that is sooo amazing!!! God is amazing that way, isn't He? Just likes to surprise us every once in awhile....like the time we were buying a car for my daughter- and everything looked sooo good- but the car dealer couldn't find the key- for over 2 hours- and when he found it my son had arrived and immediately realized there was a problem that would have cost more than 3,000 dollars to fix --- God knew-- I believe He hid the key!!