Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) (02/22/24)
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TITLE: Right Man, Right Time | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
02/29/24 -
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My usual agenda on a holiday was to volunteer to work at the hospital so that others with children and spouses could be off. One Christmas Eve I was excited finally to be on that three-hundred-mile trip home. The day was crisp and the sun was shining. It was a beautiful time to travel.
As I sped along in my elderly used car, things changed in a most distressing way. Why hadn’t I tanked up before leaving? Empty! I was able to coast to the shoulder of the road. That’s what comes of being young and hoping a drop of petrol will keep you going until a gas station sign appears. Turns out we can’t really go very far on fumes!
I sat there pondering the situation and thinking someone would surely stop at the sight of a young damsel in distress. Didn’t. Car after car zipped past me without looking in my direction. I got out and raised the hood, a universal symbol of vehicle trouble. Still, no assistance was offered, so I slammed it shut.
Back then, with no cell phones invented yet. I murmured a desperate half-prayer that sounded something like a frightened, “Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord. What’ll I do?”
With bright-colored packages visible in the back window I was positive some human would have a holiday heart and stop to help. I might as well have been invisible. Then I began to cry—a lot!
The sound of a huge semi-big rig caught my attention. He had pulled off right in front of me hauling a shiny, silver, cylindrical load. It looked like the kind that carries milk. Then I looked closer. Oh my! It was a gasoline truck!
A strong, clean, happy-looking fellow climbed down and walked back to my recently hopeless position. When I rolled down the window, he said, with a twinkling smile, “You can stop crying now. I’m probably just the guy you need!”
With that, he began to look around for a discarded bottle or can. It didn’t seem possible that he was going to do what I hoped he had in mind. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he found the perfect receptacle and marched back to his truck whistling a happy tune. Was this truly happening?
He reached up under the belly of the giant barrel and turned a nearly hidden spigot to fill the makeshift container. Then he made some kind of funnel out of cardboard and proceeded to pour the liquid gold into my empty tank. To say I was stunned is an understatement.
He took a few steps to leave and abruptly turned back and knocked on my window. When I rolled it down again, he said in his most fatherly-sounding voice, “Now, listen, Miss. DO NOT CRY anymore. It’s Christmas. You’ll be okay to get to a gas station not far from here.” And with a farewell wave, he was gone.
Even as a nominal Christian then, I knew something extraordinary had happened. I was in serious trouble. In fear and frustration, I had cried, “Oh, Lord.” Amazing help arrived with exactly what I needed.
That memory has served me well when things have looked impossible. Help doesn’t always come in a big silver truck, but thankfully, it does come! That incident started me on the road to new revelations.
Even though I knew very little about calling out to God then, over the years I have learned one important truth. We always should pray believing, not merely hoping. Help will come. Sometimes the Lord will even send a strong, handsome man in a big rig.
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*True
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