Cars...

I am currently having car trouble. I have been having car trouble since August of last year. It is the same problem, and I have taken it in to get fixed five times now. Everytime I take it in I am so excited to get it back and not have to worry about it anymore, and then alas the problem comes back. What is this probem you may ask? Well, once the care goes over 60 mph (which means this probloem happens exclusively on busy interstates) something happens that makes the car completely stall out once it goes back down below 20 mph. This means that everytime we get off of an exit, I have to pop the car into neutral and coast it onto the shoulder where we sit for 5-10 minutes.

After that the car starts like it has no problem and then we repeat the same thing. It gets really interesting if we are on a toll road or if we get into stop and go traffic on the highway. When we go on road trips I am a nervous mess the whole time (like the 22 hour roundtrip we just took to go to a week of church camp). So after hudreds of dollars this problem is still going on. I just got it "fixed" the most recent before we left for our most recent adventure, and yet somehow I was still coasting off exits with a car that was turned off.

Partially, I just wanted to rant about how annoying this is and send it out into cyberspace for some mental catharsis. In fact, when I started typing this, my only plan was to vent and I had no real plans to connect this story as an illustration for the Christian life. However, as i was e-complaining I was thinking about this, and my car kind of reminds me of the lost, the people that we will try to reach in Italy. When you don't have God you know something is wrong with you, you know something is missing. You can try to diagnose this problem a million different ways. Maybe you would feel better if you finally found that special someone, or if you had a better job, if you settled down and had some kids. Some people try to solve their problem with dangerous things like illicit drug use, casual sex, unhealthy addictions of all shapes and sizes. All of these things will always have the same result. You will think you are fixed, and that everything is finally going to go well, but it won't, and you will be coasting onto the shoulder of the next exit. God is the only fix. He is the only one who can restore our fallen lives and our broken bodies. I'm beginning to think he is the only hope for my car as well.

-Brandon