Abba, Father

What a day I have had!!
After all the faith I expounded on in my last two posts, I almost lost all of my faith this afternoon. I'm ashamed of it, but if God can still be glorified through it, I'm going to share it with you.

You see, we didn't hear from the repair shop regarding our car until 2:30. This was about 4 hours and 3 messages left for them later than we had expected. In all of this, I was ok. After all...there is glory in the waiting, right? This was just God making sure I meant what I said.

No, as it turns out, it was them avoiding our calls because they had ordered the wrong part not once, but twice, and at 2:30 were finally hoping they had gotten it right. Shortly after that they called us to tell us that the starter had been replaced, but the car still was not starting. There was a problem with the fuel pump. I lost it. Totally lost it.

You see, on Friday night, when things started acting funny, my husband and my dad both promised me it was just the battery. They said "Don't worry, we'll get a new battery in the morning, now go to sleep you silly girl." (Or something like that). So Saturday morning, bright and early, my dad came over and he and Mark went and got a new battery. And put it in the car. And nothing changed. It still wouldn't start. Several hours later, they decide that a professional must be involved, so there is nothing we can do until Monday. This was rough on me (see previous post), but since they both promised me again that it was just the starter, which was fairly easy and relatively inexpensive to replace, I prayed and did my best to have peace in the waiting.

Fast forward to today, when I find out, once again, that my husband's and dad's promises were (while well-intentioned) useless. This is where I got mad with God (how's that for honesty?). I couldn't figure out a reason why a God who promises to take care of us and give us what we need was putting us in a position where we couldn't afford to fix the one car we have!!! So I prayed. And I cried. And I whined. And I told God how I was feeling. I begged Him to intervene and fix our car. I confessed to Him that I knew I wasn't being peaceful or faithful, but I just couldn't help it anymore.

So He fixed it.

Now, I want to go on record as saying that I do not advocate throwing a temper tantrum as the best way to approach God. However, I think what happened today tells a lot about God's character. He loves us. He is not just the Alpha and Omega, Ancient of Days, King of Kings, the Great I AM. He is all of these things, but He is also Abba, which means Daddy. God loves me enough to know that I was at my limit. It may be that He is going to require that I stretch my limit in the future, but for today, because He is my Abba, He fixed my car.

(I want to also include a thank you to my husband and my earthly father, who went above and beyond this weekend to make this as easy on me as possible. To praise God in this does not diminish what they did. God used them, and they allowed themselves to be used.)