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Learn - If You Can't Stand the Heat
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If you Can’t Stand the Heat…
Learn
James 1:5-7
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. NIV
When we set out on a new adventure, we think we know what we are getting into. When God has called us to this adventure, we feel armed for anything. We dream, we plan, and possibly pray for wisdom. Maybe others warned us about the pitfalls but we think somehow, things will be different for us. Confidence and even cockiness abounds. When things start to go wrong, we fight reality and look for solutions, always thinking perfection is just around the next corner. But alas, we finally learn that some things just plain are. Every job and calling has its own occupational hazards, aggravations, disappointments, and failures. My mother in law used to say, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”
I sat in the waiting room wringing my hands. I had developed what I call the ICU waiting room look – the look people get when they are waiting on loved ones trying to recover in the ICU. I was waiting for news about the patient. Could he be fixed? Would he fully recover or would he carry the scars of surgery for the rest of his life. The poor patient had had a number of things go wrong recently and I wondered if he would ever be the same. If he did recover, would we have to deal with posttraumatic stress syndrome? I said a prayer for poor Halleluiah.
Yes, you heard me. The patient I was waiting for was Halleluiah. Poor beautiful Halleluiah, my 2006 Roadtrek, just couldn’t catch a break. After being vandalized in New Jersey, he’d spent a week getting plastic surgery on his door and running board. He was still missing a couple of screws but most of us have a loose screw somewhere. Someone removed the bolt and pin from his spare tire and the poor spare time fell backwards with a jolt that scared both his driver and the driver behind him. Halleluiah’s owner hadn’t closed a small door to the electrical cord and the cord vibrated out and bounced and slammed against pavement, destroying both the cord and the plug. His side compartment hinge is bent because someone didn’t close it properly. There is an ink stain on his seat and his stove cover was broken and repaired. Now, his generator was completely dead. When I say dead, I mean it wouldn’t start – the engine wouldn’t turn over – nothing happened when you pushed his button. Halleluiah wasn’t happy.
I first took him to hospital in Great Plains Nebraska named Freemans RV Repair. They didn’t have a waiting room so I stood over the patient as the doctor worked. The owner, Bill, tried his best (see pictures in Photo Gallery – Nebraska – Great Plains – Freemans RV Repair) but couldn’t fix him. Bill didn’t charge us for his efforts and sent us fifty miles away to Cummins in Kearney, Nebraska (see pictures in Photo Gallery – Nebraska – Kearney Cummins.) Cummins specialized in truck engines and generators so I sat in a waiting room surrounded by stranded truckers from all over the country.
Some of these truckers had been there for days. They had checked in to local hotels and were patiently waiting their turn or for parts to come in from distant places. I listened to their stories and told them mine.
“I wonder if they can even fix the generator,” I said. “They’ve had it for two hours and haven’t even been able to get it out from under the camper.” I got up, walked through the door that said “no customers allowed” and went to check on the progress. A poor man was still under Halleluiah, trying to get the generator off.
“Do you have any news yet?” I asked.
“I won’t know anything until I get this off. I suspect fixing it is going to be much easier than getting it off.” I went back to the waiting room to wait.
I looked at my fellow truckers. We all agreed we were hungry. Someone from Cummins came out and gave us coupons for Perkins and one by one, we wandered over there, walking down the block and across the street in the 98-degree heat.
When I came back from lunch, the generator was finally off. “Do you have any news for me?” I asked excitedly.
“Well, we got it off. We haven’t even started figuring out what was wrong yet.” I went back to the lobby, wondering if the mechanic had eaten lunch.
An Arkansas trucker came back from Perkins restaurant and plopped down beside me on the lobby couch. “Boy Hidey, “ he said. “You sure can sin at that place.” I had noticed the chicken fried steak and pie he had eaten. Still huffing and puffing from the hot walk, he settled his hands around his wide middle. I suspected he’d eaten more than a few meals of chicken fried steak and pie.
“I noticed you talking to those bikers. That one guy sure was upset about having to wear a helmet.”
“He sure was,” I agreed. “He’s mad at the state of Nebraska for making him wear one. In fact, he was mad about a lot of things. We talked all the way through lunch.”
An Arizonian trucker spoke up and said, “If he’d seen the motorcycle wreaks I had, he’d quite complaining and just wear the helmet.” That led to a “can you top this” session about the motor cycle accidents. That was when I first realized how much I had in common with those men. All of us were on the road much of the year, driving alone, and had witnessed terrible motor cycle accidents.
The gentle quiet Arkansas trucker was a Christian. My new friend from Arizona was not. “Have you ever been to church?” I asked the Arizonian.
“Oh yes,” he said. “I grew up in church.”
“When I asked if you were a Christian, what I was really asking was if you had ever asked Jesus into your life. Have you done that?”
“Nope,” he said matter of factly. “I believe in Jesus but I’ve never become a Christain.”
“Why on earth not?” I asked. “Asking Jesus into your life takes under 2 minutes. If you really believe, why haven’t you become a Christian?”
Both truckers laughed at me. He answered. “I guess I always figured I had time. I’m getting old now so I don’t have as much time as I used to.”
“Don’t you worry about an after life?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Like I said, I just always figured I had time.”
This man was a talker and he’d told tales about his failed business ventures and failed marriages. “Have you wondered if those businesses and marriages would have turned out differently if you’d had God’s wisdom in your life?” I asked.
“Never really thought about it,” he said. “I don’t think so. I can’t imagine what I’d have done differently.
“You’re right. You can’t imagine – but God can.” I told him about my husband. “He is the wisest person I know. I’ve been married to him for 36 years and was in business with him for 17. His favorite scripture is James 1:5-6. James 1:5 promises God’s wisdom if you ask for it. James 1:6 says that if you get this wisdom and still doubt, you will be like waves being tossed about in the wind. Bob says he asks for wisdom and doesn’t blink. It can make him stubborn sometimes but God’s wisdom made him a good husband and good business partner.”
I went on to tell him exactly how to become a Christian. I even walked to Halleluiah and got one of my salvation tracks to give him. My fellow Arizonian didn’t tell me to mind my own business and actually thanked me for the track. He didn’t give any indication about his intentions.
During this conversation, the trucker from Arkansas listened and never said a word. He’d already told me he was a Christian and I suspect he was grateful not to be the subject of my attentions.
Eventually, I remembered poor Halleluiah again and started lamenting about all the things that had gone wrong. “I still don’t know what is wrong with the generator or if they can even fix it,” I said. “I wonder if it will be covered by warranty or if I’ll have to spend money.”
“Little Lady,” the quiet trucker from Arkansas drawled. He had my heart and attention at Little Lady. No one has ever called me that before. “You just keep fretting about your camper. If you’re going to live life on the road, you’re going to have to accept that this is the way it is. You have constant wear and tear on the highway and things just break. You need to be grateful that there are places like this to fix it. You’d be in quite a pickle if you had to drive home every time something broke.”
About that time, the mechanic walked into the lobby. We all looked up, wondering which of us was about to get news about our patient. He walked to me. “The good news is that the starter is broken and we can put in a new one. The bad news is that it won’t come until tomorrow.”
Remembering how long it took to get the generator out, my heart sank. “Is the generator still out?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so,” he said.
“But I’ve already paid for a campground 50 miles away.
“A hotel room is going to be a lot cheaper than the gas driving back and forth and the labor costs to put that generator back in. Your warranty will pay to fix the starter but it isn’t going to pay the extra labor cost to put the generator back.”
“How do I get to a hotel?” I asked.
The trucker from Arizona said, “There is one across the street. I’ve been stranded there for 3 days.”
“What if they don’t take dogs?” I wailed.
“I think they do,” the mechanic said.
Belle and I walked over to Halleluiah and packed the bare minimum to spend a night. I tromped across the hot busy highway carrying a computer, luggage, and a dog. Sure enough, the Roadway Inn took dogs. I already knew Perkins was within walking distance so I wouldn’t starve.
I checked into that hotel with new wisdom – the wisdom to accept what I cannot change. When I’d had mechanical problems before, I thought it was because my vehicles were old so I'd bought a new one. Now I had a new vehicle and things were still breaking. This was my life. I lived life on the road and I couldn’t change the fact that things were going to break.
I thought about the stranded truckers waiting so patiently and realized that when their vehicles broke, they couldn’t even continue their work. For my calling, being stranded just offered a new mission field. In the course of the afternoon, God had assigned two truckers, three mechanics, 1 waitress, and two rough and tough biker dudes. What a day.
Halleluiah left the next day with a new starter in his generator. My afternoon and night in the hotel had resulted in 12 hours of sleep. The repairs hadn't cost a thing. The heat in my kitchen meant I would spent time in waiting rooms with truckers, campers, and other interesting people. I still don’t like to cook, especially in a hot kitchen, but I guess I can stand it.
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