August 29, 2014 to
September 2, 2014
The last few days have been one complete nonstop trial.
And all I have been able to do is praise God in all of it because it has
mentally and physically exhausted me. The only resource I have left to keep my
chin up is to look up to God and praise and worship through all this turmoil.Wednesday August 27, 2014
After dropping of my
sister to pick up her own car from a U-Haul center my rundown 1999 Hyundai
Accent nicknamed “The Miracle” decided to act up on the road. I turned my car
into a Winco parking lot to check liquids or to see if there was anything out
of the ordinary. Everything seemed alright, that is until I tried to reverse to
get out of my parking space to go back home. No reverse, nothing, nada. My
wonderful transmission went out. On top of this, I decided to go out without a
cellphone and no money so I couldn’t call anyone and I was sure I was not going
to walk home in 104° heat. So I placed my car in
neutral, pushed my car back (with these poorly used muscles), quickly jumped in
and drove home at 10mph. I was praying and asking God to get me home safely.
Most of what I was telling God was “Holy, Holy, Holy, Hallelujah, Praise the
Lord” and that I was promised that I would get home safely and I praise God I
did. Once I arrived home, my heart felt like it wanted nothing to do with me
and jump out and run away. It took a while for this heart murmur to calm down; I
had to sit down for a while to catch my breath. This was the first thing that
the Lord used to try to make me get out of my stubborn decision of moving
somewhere he did not want me to be.
Friday August 29, 2014
Moving Day.
I need to make one thing clear. I asked the Holy
Spirit if I should move back to Texas (but this time in San Antonio) and he
clearly told me “NO”. No reason, he only told me “NO”. Once I continue on with
my story of all the things that went wrong this week, I hope there is some
understanding of why it is so important
to be patient and be obedient to the Lord. Because if you want to do things
your way (in which this case that is clearly what I did) things are going to go
wrong, they are things that the Lord wanted you NOT to go through.
So this is the day was had
to start driving down to Texas from California. It was my eldest sister, her
daughter and me. My sister was going to drive a 17ft U-Haul truck with a car
dolly to haul my little car. I was going to drive behind her in her car. When
we were trying to drive my car on the dolly, I did not feel comfortable with
hauling it at all. I didn’t think it was worth it to haul a car that had a
broken transmission 1400 miles to another city were I didn’t know anyone who
would be able to fix a transmission (at a good price). I had brought my car so
many times to a close friend of my Dad’s that he has known for years and I had
confidence in is work because he was also a mechanic for a major car dealership
in town. I didn’t have enough time to leave it with him so he could fix it. I regret not listening to the Holy Spirit of
making the decision to leave my car. He clearly knew what was up ahead. So
we packed our things, said our goodbyes and that Friday night we were off to
Texas.Saturday August 30, 2014
We drove all Friday night and stopped in Needles, Ca. I don’t know how hot it was but it felt like a blow dryer on high heat out there. I totally thought I lived in the hot Mojave Desert in Lancaster, California but I knew nothing of what a real hot Mojave Desert was like until that day. Terrible. I stayed in the hotel until we left that night and it was still hot late at night. To the citizens of Needles, California; you deserve a Badge of Bravery.
Sunday August 31, 2014
As we were driving through
New Mexico I noticed that a cover that goes over the dolly tire was breaking
off. I got a hold of my sister to pull over and we bought some duct tape to
keep hold of the cover (duct tape fixes everything). If I had ignored it, the
cover would have broken off completely and one of the tail lights would have
been gone as well. So far it all seemed like a smooth ride. Things were going slow but we were safe.
Monday September 1, 2014
I feel I need to write this down at this moment
about Monday, so far one of the toughest painful days I have had in a great
while. It was painful…very painful. I failed to mention above that we were also
taking a dog along with us. I have another sister who lives in Texas with her
daughter, and Jack is their dog. They also lived in California before but moved
to Texas but did not bring Jack with them. They gave me the responsibility of
taking him to them. Jack is a Chihuahua-Wiener mix, loyal, and very
well-trained.
We arrived in Texas at
about noon. We stopped at a Love’s Truck Stop in Pecos, Texas to take a walk
and buy some water. The U-Haul truck and car were driven for quite some time
and it was about time to give them a rest. We waited there until about five in
the afternoon. We took off and stopped at a picnic area between Pecos and Ft. Stockton.
My sister and her daughter decided to fly a kite and I decided to let Jack out
for a walk. Jack loves, absolutely loves to walk. He loves to sniff everything,
he is very adventurous.
So… I decided to let him
lose, off his leash.
I was completely sleep
deprived but I don’t see it as any excuse for the mistake I made that moment. I
sat down to take a breather, my sister and her daughter were playing with their
kite and I took my eyes off of Jack for a slight moment. Speed limit in this stretch
of road is 75mph. There is no time to react when an animal is crossing the
road. Jack wanted to discover the other side of the road and he went for it and
was hit by a car.
I have never cried over a
dog but I cried, I’m still crying. I always thought it was a bit silly for
someone to cry over a dog. It’s only a dog… an animal. But Jack always thought
he was human. To have to call my sister and tell her that Jack was dead because
of me was so terribly painful. I don’t know exactly what my sister told her
daughter that Jack was not going to make it but I pray wholeheartedly that they
forgive me. I know he meant a lot to my niece and my sister; he was going to be
their “Man of the House”.
I cried as we drove
through the night. I was telling God that it was my fault, while he was trying
to comfort me and help me understand that it was more than fine that Jack was
in Heaven with him. That he was happy and still alive, his adventure never
ended. He was home with his creator.
After a few hours of
driving we stopped at a gas station in Junction, Texas. I was able to stretch
my legs but I felt very lonely not having Jack around to allow him to get some
exercise as well. He was supposed to be with me.
We were a few hours away
from San Antonio, so we decided to continue with our trip. It was about two in
the morning, we drove back onto Interstate 10 from Junction. As we almost left
the city I realized that my Hyundai on the dolly was riding on one side of the
dolly, not in between. I quickly called my sister to pull over the truck. We could
not grasp what we saw. The platform that holds the tires down of my Hyundai was
completely unhitched from the trailer. If my eye did not catch the trailer and
if we had continued on our trip, it would have been more than likely that the
car on the platform would have completely slid of the dolly and onto the
interstate hitting me first since I was following behind the U-Haul truck. So
we were in the pitch black night, figuring out how to get the car off the platform
and the dolly. The car on the platform was teetering on one side of the dolly
so if we made the wrong move to take the car down, it could have fallen to the
side. We decided to get two tire jacks to lift up the platform so that it would
even out with the dolly. This isn’t what made my head hurt the most, it was the
fact that my car had a broken transmission and it could not reverse off the dolly
ramp. So there was no way to reverse the car to get it off the dolly. The Holy Spirit new this was going to
happen, but I didn’t listen. So I drove my sisters car back into Junction (looking
like a beggar, for how dirty I was from crawling under the car dolly) to find a
chain or rope. We connected the ropes from the back of the Hyundai (the car
that doesn’t reverse) to the front of my sisters’ car. I steered my Hyundai that
was on top of the dolly and my sister pulled my car of the platform and onto
the dolly. But I steered too much to one side and my car fell about half a foot
from the ground, thankfully nothing was damaged.
After getting the car off
the dolly, my sister had already called a 24 hour U-Haul service truck to re-align
the platform and dolly. He was going to take about 30 minutes to arrive, so my sister
told me to drive my Hyundai up about half a mile on Interstate 10 to a picnic
area. The transmission wasn’t working well, no reverse and all I could go was
about 5mph up hill on a busy interstate. I was completely exhausted and still
in pain from what happened to Jack. It was difficult to keep focus when I was
going through all of this on only two hours of sleep. As I was driving slowly
up hill, I cried and praised God.
All I had left in me was
to praise God and sing to him. I couldn’t do anything more than to praise and
worship God. What good would it have been to lose faith, to doubt or curse my
God who has rescued me from trials like this time and time again before?
As I was climbing up the
steep road, I was worried that my car would not make it because it felt so
weak. It was then I asked God to help my
car, I was close to giving up. He told me that his angels were already there
behind and on the side of my car pushing it uphill. I could not help but to laugh
because the Lord was there the whole time. When these angels were helping me, I
could feel it on the gas pedal and I can see it on the rpm’s that my car was
going uphill so easily. I saw it spiritually how they were on each side of my
car and behind the car pushing it up slowly up hill. It was beautiful to have
experienced His angels helping me. I finally reached the picnic area and tried
to sleep. I didn’t have a phone, food, blanket or water as I was waiting there.
It took about an hour and a half for my sister to finally arrive. We took rest
there but I could not sleep. I was so tired of being tired that I could not
sleep. I looked up to the night sky to the stars and they were beautiful, I had
to keep looking for something beautiful to find some peace. I had a long day
behind me and the next day was already there. Dawn was there and the sun began
to rise, I don’t know what is ahead but I pray for calm in this storm. I praise
God for being with me; I wouldn’t have been able to keep going without him.
So now I am in San
Antonio, Texas and I am not sure what is coming next. I don’t have a car that is
working, I need to find work as soon as possible and I am currently staying at a
very cheap inn. It would have been prudent
to have a house ready waiting for us before we came out here. But I still
have faith that things will go well.
 |
| The picnic area in the early morning hour. |
