II Cor. 4:8-9

I have a friend at church named Holley who has a pretty neat thing she does every morning: she has an enormous list of text message contacts, and she sends everyone a Bible verse every day, about the same time of morning.

More often than not, it's kinda eerie how well the verse lines up with what I'm experiencing. Today was no exception.

I started to have trouble with my car last week, and yesterday, it actually ran hot - despite the fact that it was about 40 degrees out, and we were headed down the interstate at about 75 miles an hour.

Turns out, it was completely out of coolant, which is odd - it's leaving the system somewhere, but we haven't figured out where.

This morning, though, I think I figured out where it's going.


As I went to the gym, I noticed that not only did the "check engine" light BLINK, and continue to BLINK, the whole way there, the amount of white smoke pouring from my exhaust pipe was just not normal. The car wasn't running well at all.

For those of you who don't know, there are basically two places that coolant could be going - either onto the ground (which we couldn't find any evidence of) or through the engine and out the tailpipe, as the result of a problem with one of the heads, like a leaky gasket or - GASP - a blown head.

I tried to work out (thank God for my iPod, not only for the uplifting music it provided, but also because I could turn it up and drown out the 98 lb. guy grunting on one of the weight machines) and headed home. I noticed the "smoke" had an odd smell.

After I summoned Jason from a warm bed to check on the situation, he said, "It doesn't smell like coolant, it smells like oil."

Um, I'm just the daughter of a humble mechanic, but in my experience, OIL isn't any better smell for exhaust than COOLANT is.

Houston, as it is said, we have a problem.

I walked to work, as Jason took the only other automatic-transmission vehicle we have to Memphis to pick up supplies for the auction. I was feeling really, really down - I even cried when I was feeding the dogs - and then my office mate, Amber, placed a red velvet box on my desk.

It contained a really cute pair of pearl drop earrings - we had our office Christmas breakfast this morning, and we were supposed to give money to the animal shelter instead of buying gifts for each other, but Amber must have been feeling generous because there they were.

And something about her gesture just totally lifted my spirits. I'm ashamed to admit that, because somehow I should be able to get out of the dumps without jewelry, but hey, I'm human. I like shiny things! It wasn't just the jewelry that did it, though - I guess it was her thinking of me.

And then I remembered Holley's verse for today: II Cor. 4:8,9 -

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

I may be hard pressed in the transportation department right now, but I'm not crushed. I may be perplexed because I'm having these difficulties, but I'm not in despair. I feel persecuted, but I'm not abandoned, and the weight of my circumstances may strike me down, but I'm not destroyed.

I've got the van-formerly-known-as-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-van to drive, and after Christmas, we'll see what kind of hook-up my dad can get me for a good deal on machining those heads.

And I'm going to look back on this day as a testament that even though not everything goes right all the time, God can still help us get through it.