Surrendering the Car

Just when I thought that I was "safe," it happened. The car. The old, "broken-down" car, as my two-year-old calls it. The one with the taped-shut window and the missing handle on the driver's door. The one that I use to run errands. The one that I rely on to help my babies take their naps. The one that brings me a touch of sanity in the midst of the daily grind by taking me out for a spell. The one that I was holding, holding, holding on to. 

I admit it. I cried. 

And I felt the old snake-clutch of frustration well up in the clenched jaw of my heart and the fist of my silent Why. 

Why this, too? 

Why this, now?

Why--after You allowed it to last through the coldest months of winter?

Why now--when I "needed" it for just a few more months . . . 

Why, why, why . . . 

Don't You know that my husband and I don't have the money to buy another vehicle right now?

Don't You know that I need this car--for convenience, for sanity, for good, honest reasons?

Don't you know that I just can't do without it?

Yes I can. 

And it was the last material and spiritual surrender at the end of a long list of others that I've faced over the past few months. . . it seems silly--a car. But I was holding on to that car--to that old, broken-down car. Confident that I needed it. Certain that the Lord would just allow it to last until my mom sold her house and we relocated. 

I just needed that car.

And yet, I didn't. 

So after my tears, and my frustration, and my feeble attempts to carve a solution that would fit, that would fix my "problem," I hoisted the white flag of surrender. 

The car is Yours, Lord. 

The car is Yours to give or to take away. You know what I need. You give what is good. I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor His children begging bread.

I give you this car; I surrender. 

And I find now, my needs wonderfully met in Him.

Is it difficult? Yes. Is it a challenge to be without transportation during the week? Yes. 

But He turns my hill of difficulty into a channel for His grace  . . . and as a showcase for His sufficiency through the difficult. 

He places us in situations where we think that we will surely suffocate, where we are certain that life will not be able to grow. 

And those are the places where we ultimately grow the most and where life is poured into the death of our doubt through the veins of surrender. 

I surrendered the car to Him.

Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19

Just a little while before the "old broken-down car" sputtered her last, a childhood friend got in touch with me after years of losing touch with one another. 

To my great surprise, she lives within walking distance from my mom's house, where I live with my family. 

My friend is a believer who loves the Lord; she asked me if we could pray together regularly. 

She lives within walking distance. 

Only the Lord could place my friend within walking distance of my house when He knew that I wouldn't have transportation to drive . . . 

This past week, we had a blessed time of prayer and of reading the Scriptures together--without the aid of my "old, broken-down car."

The Lord makes roses bloom in the desert . . .

This gift of times of prayer with my friend are His roses of joy and rivers of refreshment to me in a dry and barren place. 

I thought that no good could come of me not having a car during the week. . . 

But He continually shows me that HE is my Good, my exceeding great Reward.

And I don't need the car.

Whenever we surrender, we grow. And whenever we refuse to surrender to Him, we choke out true life . . .

We stamp out the roses that He is willing to cultivate in our deserts.

We dry up the streams of His grace that would run and refresh us.

When we surrender, we grow.

And when we don't something in us dies, a little piece of life . . .

I surrendered the car.

Placed it in His hands . . . and knew His all-sufficient grace.  

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