For such a time as this

As my wife's passionate posts over the past few weeks have indicated, our family has been through a rough patch, unparalleled in my own limited experience. To add insult to injury, last Friday our Isuzu Rodeo broke down when we were taking our daughters to my parents. After having the Rodeo towed to Goodyear, they diagnosed the problem as a locked cam shaft on the passengers side. Covered by our 120,000 mile power train warranty. Shouldn't a problem. Right?

Goodyear found a local Isuzu service department that sill administrates Isuzu warranties - Fezeli's Imports in McKinney - so we had it retowed to there. After a day of "looking at it," they somehow determined that the Rodeo's engine had no oil in it, so this is why the cam shaft locked up - only one, mind you, on the passenger's side. I protested that this was impossible, as I had checked the oil myself days before the breakdown and we had had the Rodeo's oil changed only 300 miles before the breakdown. The Fezeli's Service department manager agreed to call a corporate Isuzu rep out to determine warrantability of the cam shaft, and this is where things stand as of now.

All of this has added on to our already financial bleeding due to other mechanical failures around our house. This has been a time of frustration. We have been on the Dave Ramsey plan to pay off our unsecured consumer debt since September of last year, and the past six weeks of breakdowns have cost us half of what we'd already paid off. It feels like we've lost six months of progress.

But it occurred to me this morning that another way to see this is that God has been working with us over the past year to prepare us for these summer events. If we hadn't paid off all that debt, we'd be that much more in the hole than we were at this time last year. As it stands now, at least we're still below that level of debt. And our patterns have changed.

For such a time as this, God has been moving in us and through us to prepare us to move beyond and into something better.