I woke up anxious for the start of my day. I had an incredible, productive day, all planned. The outline for a brilliant article was in my mind just waiting for a keyboard to capture my every word.
I was ready to get started. So, still wearing my bathrobe, I headed for my morning coffee. However, my wife greeted me, saying, “We got a text from our daughter last night. Pearl died.”
At that moment, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that my day wasn’t going to go as planned!
Ruined Day
My heart sank. Pearl is dead? What happened?
You should know Pearl is not a “who.” Pearl is the family sedan so named by our daughter because of her pearl white color. She was already seven years old when she came into our lives in 1997. I drove Pearl for many years before passing her on to our daughter. Pearl had always been faithful, but with over 200,000 miles she was showing her age.
It turns out that our daughter, Rebekah, was visiting her friends who lived several miles from her house. It was late at night when Rebekah was ready to head home and Pearl failed to start. Thankfully, a friend gave her a ride home.
With my eyes till barely open and no coffee in sight, I could sense my productive day slipping away from me.
So, I phoned Rebekah and asked what happened to try and diagnose the problem. She said that she went to drive home, turned the key, and Pearl went click, click, click, but wouldn’t start.
Click, click, click? It sounds like a dead battery. “Do you want me to come help?” “Yes,” she said, “that would be great.”
Somehow, I managed to get dressed without my coffee, and headed to the garage. I grabbed the booster cables and packed the tools I would need to change out the battery.
As I started the 50-mile drive to Rebekah’s house, I developed a new plan for my day. I thought, maybe if I’m lucky and traffic is light, I can install a new battery and make it home in time to still salvage a few hours of productive writing.
Then it started to rain. Oh, and I need to say that it wasn’t our usual drizzle. No, it was pouring down buckets of rain. “Great, just great,” I thought as I drove, with the wipers working at full speed. It was not only freezing cold outside (by the way, 40 degrees qualifies as freezing in California), it is now raining. It was just how I wanted to spend my morning—changing a car battery in the freezing cold rain!
This was certainly not what I planned when I got up this morning! I felt my internal cranky meter climbing into the red zone as I realized my writing day was ruined.
I picked up my daughter at her house just as the rain started to let up, and a glimmer of sunshine poked through the clouds. It was still freezing cold, but at least it wasn’t pouring rain.
We drove to where Pearl spent the night. I attempted to start her, and she tried but just wouldn’t go. It wasn’t the battery. Something else was wrong with her. It was clear, Pearl needed to be towed to someone who knew about fixing aging German cars.
My daughter called a tow truck. We went off to have lunch and wait for the 60 minutes for the tow truck to arrive.
Two hours later, the tow truck driver finally showed up, loaded Pearl, and headed off to the mechanic (thank-you Google and Yelp).
We got to the mechanic’s shop, and it turns out it was a wonderful family-run operation. The wife ran the front office, the husband was the expert mechanic, and their son was following in dad’s footsteps.
Then, within minutes, this expert mechanic diagnosed the problem as a simple fix. Pearl just needed a new fuel relay, he said. Who knew that fuel needed to be relayed? He promised Pearl would be brought back from the dead, resurrected if you will, by the very next day.
It was late in the afternoon by the time I drove Rebekah back to her house, dropped her off, and headed home.
Wonderful Day
As I got within 20 miles of home, it started to rain again. This time even harder than before. My wipers were going so fast they threatened to fly off the car and launch into outer space. I had to slow down just to see where I was going.
Over the top of a hill and into the valley headed toward home there was a break in the clouds. The sun was shining, and there was the most beautiful rainbow I had seen all year.
That rainbow reminded me of what God told Noah,
Whenever I bring clouds over the earth, and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind (Genesis 9:14-15).
I smiled and thought, thank-you God for the most incredible, wonderful day!
Oh, sure, my plan for a productive day of writing never materialized, but that didn’t matter. God replaced it with something far more precious.
How? Well, I got to spend a whole day with Rebekah. I got to sit in the car with her and talk. Father-daughter stuff. You know, the types of things we rarely talk about. The kind of stuff you don’t normally talk about because we are busy doing other stuff. We talked about life plans. We talked about what God is doing in our lives and what we can do to serve Him.
In my mind, this was a day that started out ruined, but God turned it into the most wonderful day of the year.
Sometimes, we need our plans to be interrupted to bring our attention to what and who is really most important in our lives.
So, as we say goodbye to this year, I encourage you to take the time to make memories and share treasured moments with the people you treasure most. Somewhere deep inside God’s rainbow is where a treasured moment is waiting and a wonderful day awaits!
I pray that no matter how much rain falls in your life, you will see God’s rainbow in the sky. Remember, He is with us always. Even to the ends of the earth!
More Articles
I’ve written many articles about priorities over the years. You can search for “priorities” to find them, or you can check out the links below for five of the most recent articles.
- #283: Being Busy Is Not the Same Thing as Doing Things That Matter!
- #279: Sometimes Not Doing Something Is the Best Thing to Do
- #275: What Is the Point of a Memorial?
- #273: Confessions of a Busy Man Who Failed
- #202: Resolutions Are a Complete Waste of Time!
Join the Conversation
As always, questions and comments are welcome. I would like to know if God has ever interrupted your plans to give you something even better–a wonderful day?
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Category: Personal Development | Priorities
