Faith and Fumes

I was in the bed this morning not really asleep and not yet awake. You know what I'm talking about. You are aware that you are still in the bed but somehow your brain hasn't connected with your body enough to make it move. It was at this point that Nathaniel began to wake up. I could hear him tossing and turning. Slowly his movement began to pull me out of my false sleep. I became aware of the sunlight filtering through the blind. My brain slowly began to start working. It began to go through the list of all that I had to do today. Then out of nowhere, my brain fully switched on, "Light through window not good!" I sat straight up in bed realizing that yes I had actually slept through my alarm!
I'm running through the house like a mad woman, trying desperately to drag tired kids out of the bed and get them ready for school! I hate starting my day off like that. It puts you behind all day long. Rush, rush, rush! I absolutely hate running late for anything. Although with five kids, I'm late most of the time. I still desire punctuality. So, I put in a quick text to one of my close friends begging for her to say a quick prayer for me. Monday morning was off to a glorious start.
After dropping the kids off at school, I came home and fixed breakfast for me and Nathaniel. Then I took Robert to work. I also had to drive out of town and pick up Zachary and Kaitlyn's glasses. On my way out of town I decided to put in a call to my friend that I had texted earlier. I was actually so involved in the conversation that I forgot to do something very important, check the gas hand. Enough said. Half way in between Carlsbad and Hobbs I realize that I am fixing to be out of gas. Now I really need to explain this to my GA friends and family. Here in the great southwest, you can drive a whole hour sometimes and never see a gas station or any form of life. The roads sometimes stretch on forever with nothing but dirt and cacti to keep you company. I really love the awesome view of the sky that you get to see living here, but I hate the vast empitness that sometimes goes along with it. Anyway, like I was saying, I am half way in between two cities and out of gas. There are no gas stations between these two places. At least there are none that can be seen from the highway. So, I am in the midle of nowhere. My gas tank is on empty and my cell phone just died.
As we would say in GA, I was "up the creek". My initial reaction was one of anger and frustration at myself. How in the world could I have been so careless, so stupid! I can't turn around and drive 30 miles back to Carlsbad. I would never make it that far. I can't just keep driving because it is 30 miles to Hobbs. Either way I would have to travel the same distance on EMPTY. There was nothing left for me to do but pray. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't even sure if the Lord would answer me. I mean I had gotten myself into this mess. I had made a mistake and now I was just going to have to live with the consequences. Nathaniel and I would just have to hope and pray that some nice person would stop and help us. We definately were not going to make it. We were going to run out of gas and be stranded on the side of the road.
I began to pray. I didn't even know what to say to the Lord at first. I just couldn't move past my failure. All I could do was cry. I just cried to the Lord with deep sobs of regret and guilt at my situation. It was still prayer though. Even if it was just a groaning from my spirit, it was still prayer. Eventually the story of the woman and the bottles of oil came to my mind. I just began to pray that God would just make the gas in the tank continue to flow until I had reached my destination. I glanced down at the tank and I am dead on empty. The sign I just passed stated I had 13 more miles to go. I just kept praying. Thirteen miles later, the van began to sputter as I pulled into the first gas station I came to.
I know this wasn't some big life or death moment. The lesson I learned from this experience though was epic. For the first time in my life, I totally understood that God is bigger than my failures. He is an awesome and mighty God. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." That doesn't give us a green light to do whtever we want. It does reassure us that God has the ability to take our failures no matter how big or small, and make something glorious! When we feel like we are on that slippery slope, God is the sure footing that we have been looking for. When we are running on fumes, He is our endless supply of gas. ;)