Thanksgiving

We are visiting our son this week, and it has been a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Before I fell asleep last night, I was praying and thanking God for His protection and provision as we drove here. We had a blow out on the highway. My husband was driving and suddenly, I realized the road noise was very loud. I said something about it, and he said, "I'm pulling over." `Because it's noisy?' I thought. "No," he informed me. "It's the tire."

He was so right. It was thoroughly flat. To make things even worse, we were unable to drop the spare on the vehicle, and after 15 minutes of trying, I called our roadside service company. In the meantime, a very nice electric company employee stopped to see if he could help us. Alas, he was not able to lower that stubborn spare tire, either.

However, the service truck finally arrived, and he loaded up our vehicle, recommended that we see if we could find a replacement tire as he drove us to the next town. My husband, daughter and I had a very cozy ride, but at least we were headed in the right direction instead of going back to the town from which the service truck came.

Thanks to the miracle that is the internet and an iPhone, I found a couple of numbers and my husband was successful in locating a matching tire. We lost two and a half hours, but then we were back on the road and on our way. The remainder of our trip was uneventful.

This morning I was sharing with my mother how grateful I was for God's help yesterday. She said, "Wouldn't it have been better if you hadn't had the flat tire?" I understand that theory, but I was talking about how blessed we were that the tire blew when no other cars were near us. It was a rear tire, and my husband had no trouble controlling the car. The place he pulled off was the widest shoulder around. We were still in sight of a major landmark to help the truck driver find us. Though we lost a lot of time, I have never resented that since the day that the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was bombed.

My closest friend for many years worked across the street from that building and parked in its garage every day. Her usual routine was to pull into that garage at 9 am and be walking up the ramp to the street at 9:02 every morning. That day, she was running seven minutes late. She got to the corner just as a police officer closed down the street. Had she been on time, she probably would have died as the building collapsed over her. Had she been early, she could have been injured or even killed by the glass as every window in her office was blown across the room by the force of the blast.

Consequently, any time little things delay me and prevent me from keeping my schedule, I assume God's Hand is in it keeping me from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I am extra thankful today. God has blessed me and my family in so many ways. Today, I have tried to recognize a long list of those blessings. I hope you have done the same.

And thanks to Schwan's, we had quite an interesting dinner. What I thought was a turkey breast, ready to bake in it's own wrapper turned out to be turkey tenderloin in gravy. It was delicious, and I confess, the easiest turkey I've ever prepared. My family laughed at me, but all I had to do was put it in a pot on the stove, and no one had to carve the thing. They will never let me live it down, I fear, and I don't blame them. I've laughed at myself, too.