Eight month pregnant Stephanie and I pulled into the Ingles parking lot after a long day of failed attempts of Festival going. By this point, we had decided that whatever attempt we made at doing anything, was going to be unsuccessful or met with some sort of obstacle. After driving through North Ga most of the day and finally making it back into the greater Gainesville area, why would we expect anything less than the odd luck of the first part of day to continue?
So back to the nearly empty Ingles parking lot. I pull the car down an aisle and I’m turning into a parking space so we can run (I use run loosely, you know with the very pregnant Stephanie and all) quickly into Ingles and grab bread and gravy for the pot roast. The pot roast the we believe will actually be ruined due to some freak happening like Namche, her dog, getting famished during the day and diving into the crock pot for a treat; or Kaden her 2 year old, sneaking away from Dad Shane and somehow climbing onto the counter and dumping an entire bottle of Tabasco sauce or a bucket of saw dust from outside into the pot. But we were stopping anyway and getting our gravy and bread on the off chance that the roast will in fact be tasty and delicious and not ruined.
Anyhow, as I’m pulling into the Ingles parking space, a truck is pulling into the space that is connected to mine from the other aisle. I think nothing of it at first, I figure, he’ll just stay in his space and not do the pull straight through thing b/c I’m currently pulling into that space. And I’ll stay in my space and not do the straight through thing b/c that was the plan and I know how to reverse out of a parking space. Mr. Old guy, however, in his decades old F-150 apparently had different plans. He had his mind made up that he was not, under any circumstance about to have to back out of a parking space after his Ingles shopping experience and decides that even if he has to push me and my Ford Escape out of the way with his front bumper, he’s pulling through and taking my spot. I just stopped and stared at him in awe (our eyes actually met) and with a feeling of “of course, why would something bizarre not be happening” coming over me, I had no choice but to put my sap covered, worn out from driving all day Escape into reverse and take another parking space. It was quite funny and ironic and very fitting of how our weekend was going. And really, the perfect way to end our adventure of Fall Festival Fiascos 2010. Oh wait, did I say end of fall festival fiascos? no no, we decided to give it another shot on Sunday at Mule camp in 90 degree, October weather. What were we thinking? Maybe we refuse to believe that we can experience such weird luck for another day in a row. Maybe we’re just the kind of people that have hope that things will eventually go as planned and that there must be some explanation to all the seeming randomness of the past 2 days. At least I know Steph feels that way, b/c on our long drive back from Failed Festival #1, she was coming up with spiritual and life lessons to be learned from our 2 previous days together. And to prove that she always has some positive spin on everything she said as we walked into Ingles “maybe the old guy’s old truck’s reverse gear doesn’t work”.
I wonder could it all be providence? Could the traffic, failed Apple Festival attempts, blockaded roads, friends who get sick and you can’t hang out, 90 degree October weather, and old guy’s parking preferences be part of a bigger plan, a weaving together of seemingly random incidences ordained by God to create a story that we can’t see today or possibly ever this side of eternity, but is necessary to creating the life that He actually has planned for us? I like to think so. So I’ll take Steph’s perspective, “the old guy’s truck probably doesn’t go into reverse”. And I’ll take these occurances as they come and do my best to trust the Author of my story with each seemingly random circumstance that comes my way.
As much of a failure as it was it was super fun!
ReplyDeleteSo I thought I would share the spiritual lesson I saw in our failure. As we were driving out of Ellijay gladly fleeing the chaos of traffic and trying to warn the incoming lines of cars to turn around, I couldn't help but realize that we were asking them to do what we too often don't do ourselves. We had been to the Apple Festival and seen the crowds, the lines and experienced the craziness of it all. We knew what traffic was ahead of these people and yet they would not heed our warning and they would wait in over 3 miles of traffic just to get into Ellijay to wait in 2 more additional miles of traffic at least to find no place to park. But just as we had neglected to turn around at our HWY 53 "Road Closed" sign and go to the Mule Camp Market heeding the warning that our day would be crazy, we had to see it to believe it. So, to the Apple Festival we went and we saw and we believed. Now, we were warning others and they too needed to see it to believe it. And as we were warning them, the lesson was revealed to me we all too often have to see our faith to believe it, just as Thomas had. Instead of trusting the testimony and experiences of those before us, we stumble to just have faith and so we waste time, energy and faith not trusting the truths we can learn from those before us.
And then again, if we had turned around early on HWY 53, I would have missed this simple reminder of our faith and we would have missed our fun Sunday hanging out with friends at the Mule Camp Market. And in this I found a second spiritual lesson. It seems clear to me that our Lord is more than capable of teaching us wherever we are, Hwy 53 or Hwy 136. If we are looking for Him, listening to what He may say, He'll guide us, teach us and be with us even in our failure to turn around back when He was saying "Road Closed".
Lindsey, I love you and your blog writings. Looking forward to following you and hanging out with my friend through your writings.