God Drives a Tow Truck (6 page)

While I did not quite share his passion for meals, I did share his passion for watching the world whiz by from the seat of a bike. The route was spectacular, through the Susquehanna valley into Pennsylvania, and I was very excited by the prospect of riding a bike all day.

I winced only briefly when Dad emerged in the black and yellow spandex on the morning of the ride. The other fit and trim cyclists all milled about. As Dad and I unloaded our bikes, and headed to the starting line, he yodeled to clear the path and announce his presence. I followed at a distance, hiding my face as far as possible in my hunched shoulders. He had all the latest equipment on his bike, long before anyone else knew such inventions existed. He was the Karaticus Pott of the cycling world. He had odometers, speedometers, weather vanes, barometric gauges, electric headlights and tail lights, super clenching cleats and the latest Italian leather shoes. It is a wonder he had room to put himself on the bike. Should we break down, he had pumps, and tubes, and spokes, and tire irons, and little bike repair kits that fit in the palm of his hand and could fix anything short of the Apocalypse. Despite a route map with carefully plotted restaurants all along the way, he had an ergometrically designed front pack stocked full of high energy bars that would feed a battalion.

When the loudspeaker announced that we were off and running, we were in the midst of an astonishing pack of colorful cyclists. Very quickly, the herd began to thin, with us left in the wake like the entrails of a vanishing jet. Soon we were all alone, with the lovely Susquehanna our sole companion. For the next 98 miles, we were not to see another soul, except as they passed us having reached the turnaround point and returning homeward. Dad cheerfully waved and yodeled.

It was dark when we finally pulled back into the parking lot, one hundred miles later. We had made the trek successfully, one hundred miles on bicycles. Everyone else had long since gone home. Our car remained alone in the foggy street light beam. We wearily got off our bikes, and loaded them onto Dad’s state of the art bike carrier, and in the quiet of the evening, headed home.

Many people struggle to know God because their earthly father was so unbearable. Why would they ever seek a
heavenly
father to struggle with as well? With the wisdom of age, I have come to realize that the gift of my quirky Dad was what gave me the freedom to risk the scorn of a world that chased after the mundane. In his own possibly unintended way, my dad taught me to seek the unusual, maybe even something so bizarre as a baby born in a manger that would be the savior of

Chapter Eight

Fixing Myself Into a Fix

Daniel 5:20-21

²⁰
But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory.
²¹
He was driven away from people and given the mind of an animal; he lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like the ox; and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and sets over them anyone he wishes.

I stared forlornly at the flat tire. The little orange VW bug stood there lopsidedly, its normally cheerful presence as woebegone as my face. As is often the case with flat tires, this had not occurred at an opportune time. This was early in my marriage, when I was not yet a believer. If indeed there was a God and if, as some claimed, He cared about every hair on my head, why did He not think it wise to have the flat tire occur in the parking lot of a mechanic who loved helping others for free? And why had this flat tire come when I was doing the very complex statistical analysis for my Master’s Thesis, which required every ounce of energy and concentration that I possessed? This most undesirable flat tire proved to my agnostic heart that there was probably no God.

Arvo stood with me looking at the disabled vehicle. I glared disconsolately at the flat tire.

“Come on,” he said, “I will teach you how to put on a spare tire, and then I’ll follow you to the store to get you a new one.”

I was not excited about this novel task. As every graduate student knows, there are never enough hours in the day to do what needs to be done. I was only months from graduation and my Thesis review and presentation. The statistical analyses were not quite fitting my hoped for conclusion. I knew that if I looked hard enough, I could prove anything, and force those numbers to support my hypothesis, but not if my concentration was interrupted. My head ached.

“Come on,” he cajoled, “It will be fun.”

Arvo settled down in front of the lame little car, and showed me how to loosen the lug nuts. He carefully placed the lugs in a Frisbee, so they would not roll away. Next he taught me how to jack up the car. I was astounded how the small metal contraption could lift that heavy car. He let me crank the jack and I felt like Super Woman. I am a small woman, and physical strength is not on my short list of fine attributes. However, I cranked that 2,000 pound car up like it was a tub of butter. Arvo slid the ruined tire off. He showed me how to place the little spare tire on the axle. I was dubious.

“That little mini-tire is safe?”

“Of course,” he answered, “You can’t go very far on it, but it will get you to the tire store.”

I was not sure about this. It looked like a toy tire. However, Arvo had only recently married me and I knew he would not put his new bride’s life in danger.

“Now you put all the lugs back on, and just hand tighten them,” he said, “Then you jack the car back down before you tighten them the rest of the way.”

“Why?”

“The tire will just spin in the air if you try to tighten them while it is jacked up.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

He lowered the car, and we stepped back, surveying our work. I hugged him, and told him how impressed I was.

“Now follow me and we will buy your new tire.”

“And you are absolutely sure I am safe driving on this little thing?”

“Perfectly safe,” he said.

We set off, on the frightening, crowded Santa Monica freeway, where every driver had obviously missed the Driver’s Ed lesson about safe driving distance between cars. I tried to keep Arvo in my sights, but was very nervous with that funny little tire. Even if I had four normal tires, I would not willingly have driven as fast as Arvo, nor weave in and out of such tight spots while changing lanes. I was already clutching the steering wheel with white knuckles when the little tire flew off the car.

I don’t remember having time to pray (were I inclined to do so), or reason the best course of action, when there was a sickening lurch to the left. A horrific grinding sound erupted as my now empty tire axle hit the pavement. Sparks began shooting up as I wrestled with the out of control three wheeled car. I have no idea how I managed to wrench the steering wheel to the right, cross two lanes of bumper to bumper speeding traffic, and make it onto the shoulder. I watched the little tire go bumping across the four zipping lanes, weaving as though it had a brain, between the cars. It settled against the cement divider without causing a single mishap or fatality.

Dazed and then cognizant that I could have died, I laid my head on the steering wheel and cried.

Arvo had watched the drama in his rear view mirror. Somehow, he managed also to catapult across three lanes to the shoulder, and then shriek his car backwards to slam to a shuddering stop in front of me. He leaped out of his car and flung open my door, grasping me against him.

We surmised we must have forgotten to tighten the lugs. Oops. Honestly, I don’t know how I survived that one. When I think back on how fast I was going, how crowded the freeway was, how many lanes of traffic my car and my tire had to avoid, and how we both managed to make it safely to the shoulder unscathed, I am only amazed that I
still
didn’t believe in God. Not then, not yet.

Years later, I would come to love the verse, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” (Philippians 1:6) There is practical sense in carrying work to completion. I did not know God when my tire fell off. However, He knew
me
. I was unaware that He had begun a good work in me, and He wasn’t finished. He promises He will bring His work to perfect completion. Fortunately,
He
never forgets to tighten the lug nuts.

Chapter Nine

The Race Set Before You

Hebrews 12: 1-3

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Few people would tackle a marathon, especially someone who started running at age fifty, and was a smoker. My mother had been smoking for decades, born into an era that didn’t understand the health risks, and then became addicted. I was a runner, and had been ever since joining the track team in my hyperactive high school days. I discovered that running helped to keep my energy level manageable. My mom was a similar high energy person, athletic, and a tennis player. She had never been interested in running. However, I felt running would be a good addiction for her that might replace her less healthy addiction. At least, it might counteract the deleterious effects of smoking. So when she hit age fifty, I begged her to try running.

“I can’t run,” said Mom.

“Just one block, just try to do one block with me.”
“That’s it? Then you’ll stop bothering me?”
“Just one block.”

She huffed and puffed that one eighth mile.

“There, see how easy that was? Tomorrow we do two blocks.”

She looked at me, her grey eyes narrowing as she wheezed, “I thought you said just one block.”
“Well, one block to start. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

The next day we did two blocks.

“Don’t you feel great!?” I asked her.

“No.”
“Tomorrow we do three blocks. If you can do three blocks, soon you can do three miles.”

“Three blocks!”
“
Just three blocks
! You can do
just three blocks
.”

The next day, we set off for our three block run. She started slowly, not much faster than a walk. We finished the first block. She was huffing.

“Just two blocks to go!”
She began to run a little bit faster. She was still sucking in air, but her skin wasn’t quite so blue.

“One block more! We’re almost there! You can do it!”

As we crossed the three block line, I held her hand up, in victory.

From that inauspicious beginning, she was hooked. Very quickly, she was entering races and winning her age group. Her goal to run a marathon was born.

I decided that I, too, would train for a marathon. I lived in Los Angeles at the time, and Mom was in New York. We compared our training regimens and notes as we both set out to reach our goal. Mom was far more diligent than I. She was shooting for a February race in Syracuse, but I knew that I would never be ready by then. I had my sights set on a summer race in San Diego. Mom followed the suggested training schedule religiously. I, on the other hand, did not.