The Car Report, Part II

On the morning of June 29, 2009 when I noticed my car was missing, I felt right away that everything was going to be okay.

When I learned that through some sort of miracle, I had insurance that would cover the theft, I thought "Oh! This is it! Everything IS fine!"

When my insurance company's three week waiting period was over and they told me how much they were going to pay for my car and I realized that even with the $1000 deductible, I was going to turn a profit on the whole ordeal, I thought "Oh Wow! Everything really IS okay!"

And when the police called me on Tuesday August 4th and told me that my car had been recovered in perfect condition I thought "The insurance was just a red herring! Everything really is fine. I wouldn't have seen this coming."

A quick "what the heck?!" explanation: For all intents and purposes, my car had been stolen by a towing company. They towed my car (signs that read "No Standing" should be understood to mean "No Parking") but they (the tow-ers) did NOT enter it in the "towed car" database and did not attempt to contact the car owner. My car sat in the impound garage for a month before they noticed no one had to come to pick it up. When they ran the plates to find the owner, it came up as stolen, so they gave me a jingle.

The first thing I did after the call was go to the impound to check on my car. It really was in perfect condition. Figuring out how to get the car out of the click proved to be much more difficult. After two days of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, I hatched a plan on how to illegally break it out of the impound. Marcus agreed to help (I was maybe not forthcoming with him that my plan wasn't technically legal). After my endless hours on the phone with various state and local departments who were of NO HELP WHATSOEVER, you can imagine my surprise when the lady working at the impound lot knew exactly what I needed to do and it was a process that took less than an hour. You'd better believe I brought her cookies when I came to pick up my 100% legally legit car. Thank you Impound Security Lady!

As I drove home, I had this realization: I had made a legitimate parking error. If they had put my car in towed car registry (as they were legally obligated to do), I would have had to pay the $200 towing fee. Then I would have had to worry about parking the car every night. And I would have had to pay the $150 for insurance for the month of July. So, minus the mental exhaustion of trying to get the car back after it was recovered, having my car "stolen" turned out to be a WINNING experience for me. How CRAZY is that?!!

And it occurred to me: "The WHOLE time everything really was 100% okay. God had this plan that I couldn't have even comprehended." Wow! Plus, the arrived home just exactly when I needed it-- the day before I had to start moving out of my apartment and just in time to answer the prayers of a much-worried ward activities committee who didn't have enough rental van to get everyone to a river rafting activity. I am very very thankful that God gave me the "everything is okay" prompting and that I was able to hear it even in what could have been a frantic situation. And I'm so glad I was able to stick with that feeling of peace and hope throughout the ordeal.

Funny story:
Once I finally got my plates, Marcus (who, I'm going to add here is my hero) asked if I wanted him to come help me get the old plates off and the new ones on. The impound lot is a pretty out-of-the way place, so I said, "Marcus, I love accepting help from you, but I can handle replacing plates by myself." (Although I did accept his mini-tool-kit-thingie.) I was totally wrong--I could not to save my life get the front plates off. I even cut my finger fairly badly trying. I finally had to just pull on the plate enough to make the holes big enough that I could slip it off. Then when I took the car to get the safety and emissions test immediately after, the fellow there put the new one on for me. He didn't seem to have any sort of problem with it. Sheesh.

Seriously, do you know anyone who is more blessed than me?

At that point, the only thing that hadn't worked out 100% perfectly was the fact that I had committed to drive someone else's car across the country. BUT after fasting and prayer, last Sunday another person was found to drive the other car, so now I am free. I was worried about that one, but I figured God had a plan-- someone out there must have been looking for a car to drive across the country and, sure enough, God helped us cross paths with that person and now everyone's prayers have been answered.

Sometimes God's goodness and wisdom just blows my mind.