Everyone has seen the movie Three Men and A Baby right? Well, this story is called “The 3 Week Blessing”. Three weeks?!? That’s right…3 weeks, because that is the amount of time in which I found out that I was getting a car and a bike! So, what makes this story so interesting then???
Well, back in May of 2005 I had a liver transplant…yes a liver transplant. Well I suppose you want to hear that story. Too bad! Anyway, after the transplant I was off work for about 5 and a half months. I was heading back to work near the beginning of October…actually the 3rd was going to be my official start back to work. The transplant had gone fantastic and the healing process was extraordinary so I was able to go back to work earlier than expected. Actually I ran out of money which is why I went back early! So…2 days before heading back to work my car died. It wasn’t worth fixing so I took it to the wreckers. Here I was, two days before my return to work with no vehicle and no money to buy a vehicle…NONE! Well this is a good start.
Anyway, I did go back to work on the 3rd and I didn’t have to hitchhike! One of my close friends lent me his vehicle at the time. Actually, he said that between him and his wife they only needed one vehicle so I could drive the other one until they needed it back. It wasn’t till sometime in December that they needed the vehicle back so that was a big help. Unfortunately I still had no money and hadn’t been back to work full time for very long so I wasn’t able to buy a vehicle yet. I prepared to take public transportation to get to work from then on in. I consider myself fortunate to have that option, however it was going to be very difficult. I figured it would take about 2 ½ hours each way going back and forth to work. I work 10 hour shifts so 1/3 or my day was going to be traveling back and forth to work…yuk!!! Oh well, gotta get there somehow.
Well, I think I took public transportation one day that week because another friend volunteered the use of his vehicle while he was on call at work since they provided a vehicle for him. This happened several times over the course of my time without a vehicle. When he needed that vehicle back in December God had already made arrangements for me to have another vehicle. My mom was having a hip replaced and was not able to drive for 6 weeks so she allowed me the use of her car over that time. What a blessing! Now we are in to the New Year and I am just catching up on rent by the start of February so I definitely don’t have money to buy a car. I think with the entire amount of time from October to April I think I took public transportation 4 – 5 times. So this bouncing from vehicle to vehicle continued into the spring. One of my friends actually bought a vehicle and said it was for his fiancés son when he got his license and said I could use it till then. I’m not sure if that’s why he really bought it…
Since October I had been telling people that I believed that God could provide me with a vehicle and that I would not need to go into debt over. Having said that, by the time April came along I was getting a little impatient and financially I still had no money to really spend but I was back on my feet. I figured I could maybe start looking at financing a car even though I REALLY didn’t want to do that. I looked at a car in the spring and had decided that it was what I wanted but I told the dealer that I wanted to walk away from it for a week and pray about it. When I went back into talk to him I found out that in order to get the financing I would have to meet one of 2 conditions. I was able to meet both, but not together so I was unsure of what to do so I just walked away from it. At any rate, I drove the car that my friend bought for a couple of months, actually up until May 21st when I went down to my parking garage to find that the car had been stolen. YES…stolen! Oh well…what could I do? I went out, grabbed a cab and went to church that morning. I was a few minutes late, but Pastor Roy understood when I explained what happened. Thank God for an understanding Pastor!!!