My son Joshua told me of something that, while funny, really isn’t. He and his girlfriend were visiting her sister/husband. There was a phone call from a niece stating she’d had a flat. The niece did not know how to change a flat. She also did not have the tools to change a flat.

Joshua and the sister’s husband arrived to find an SUV full of guys. They thought someone had stopped to help. But, no. The boys were the girls’ friends. They didn’t have tools, either. None of them knew how to change a flat, anyway. I won’t go into the attitude Josh and the sister’s husband felt toward these boys.

While it is sad than an SUV full of guys couldn’t help or know how to help, that isn’t the point today. I’ll address that on my other website (lbddiaries.com) about the importance of who you associate with.

I got to thinking about how my dad made me learn how to change a flat when I got my driver’s license at 16. He taught me the importance of having the tools and a good spare. Then I thought how I have NEVER had to change a flat since then. Any flat I got, someone almost immediately stopped to help.

I began to realize how blessed and protected I was because a couple of places I had a flat were in scary places. God ALWAYS sent someone across my pathway to help me.

Once I had a flat late at night, on a back road in between anyplace that had a tire shop. This was long before cell phones. I wasn’t anywhere near a payphone or even people’s homes. A policeman “just” happened to come by, radioed and woke someone up to come tow my car and haul it to a shop.

My car had had a flat on a narrow two-laned back road. And unfortunately, the spare is what was flat (so no spare). There was no safe place to change a tire, anyway. I also had no cash with me and my checkbook was at home. Can you say God’s Favor? The man gave me a used tire and trusted me to send him a check (for cost of towing my car) when I got home. I sure did.

Things like that happened to me a lot – and yet JUST NOW I looked back and realized how much God had protected me. I almost feel ashamed at how much I had not paid attention to His goodness over the years. I have to stop and thank God for His goodness.

I think it would do us all good to look back over our lives and look at things differently. To realize how many times God really had been there. To see how much He protected us.

Oh yeah, and if you don’t know how, learn how to change your own flat on your car and make sure you have tools!

♥