Losing the keys to freedom…
…and the lessons learned from it!
I remember the day I bought my first car…
Sure, the engine was only a 4-cylinder, and the audio system lacked Bluetooth capabilities, but nevertheless, it was mine. No more asking my friends for rides, no more arranging pickups and drop offs with mom or dad.
No more waking up at 6:30, in the morning, to ensure I had enough time to make the 20-minute trek across campus before my eight o’clock class. I had the keys to freedom, and I called that freedom, “Periwinkle”.
I also remember the day I wrecked my first car…
Barely a mile from my house, I took my eyes off the road for only a second, and a second was all it took.
I remember glancing up just in time to see the front of my precious periwinkle collide with the back of a stationary, white pickup truck at forty-five miles an hour.
Dazed from the impact, heart pounding, I frantically made my way over to the truck. With each step I prayed over and over in my head,
“Dear, God, please don’t let there be kids in there. Please don’t let anyone be hurt.”
Stepping over the pieces of my car that lay scattered all over the road, I called to the young man in the driver’s seat. “He..hello?! I stammered. “Sir, are you hurt?!”
Sounding as dazed and confused as I was, he responded, “No, I’m alright. I just wish I had been wearing my seatbelt!”
Both shocked as well as relieved by his answer, I faltered back to my car in search of my phone. Eventually, the cops were called, cars were towed, and my spirit was crushed. I spent the evening moping around my room thinking,
“what if I hadn’t left the house?” or “what if I had been paying attention?”
In the days that followed, my car sat in the driveway; a crumpled reminder of my carelessness. I had woefully fallen back into the routine of asking for rides, and planning my outfits around shoes I could walk in, when I received a text. It was a text from my mother, with a picture of my dream car.
Since the day I learned how to pronounce my own name, I wanted to own a Lexus. I mean, after all, what’s cornier than being able to say, “Alexis drives a Lexus.”
All humor aside, the day I bought that Lexus, I learned an important lesson too.
In the bible, in the book of Job, we read about a certain young man who faces many hardships at the hand of the devil. No, Job didn’t lose his car, but he did lose his health, his home, and his happiness.
Yet, despite it all, he remains faithful to God.
In the end, the bible even says, “the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning”. Indeed, there is never a moment when God doesn’t have our best interest at heart. His blessings are beautiful and bountiful
Yes, I wrecked my Honda Civic, but, in the end, I was blessed with a Lexus. The bible reminds us to “count it all joy” when we encounter various trials in life because “the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3).
God rewards perseverance, because he wants us to know that no matter how far life pulls us down, he can bring us up.
Whatever the size of the problem, he is bigger.
In the beginning, I thought I finally had the key to freedom when I bought my first car. What I had yet to understand, was that the real key to freedom is found in Christ; and the best part… that key is free!
