L.M.
It’s been almost four years since the tow truck driver told me, “Young lady, you need to have a lot more faith in God.” It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was driving back to work from a weekend road trip when my car began to smoke and broke down. By the time AAA arrived a few hours later, anxiety had set in. This was the final episode in a downward spiral of events that led me to turn to God.
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Still worrying about how I was going to get home, I truly prayed for the first time in my life: “Lord I don’t know if you exist, but if you do, I need to talk to you.” At that moment, something inside of me burst open. The hardness and hopelessness began to melt away with the flow of tears – springs of living water quenching my thirst.
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I don’t know what I was expecting – a booming voice from heaven or perhaps nothing – but that day I learned that the Lord is so awesomely human. On the way home, the tow truck driver started talking about Jesus. For the first time I thought, “Oh yeah, what about Jesus?” I had gotten so used to seeing Him dead on the cross that I was blind to the fact that Jesus also resurrected, ascended, and is alive today ruling on the throne of God.
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Through His simple statements and questions, the words that the tow truck driver spoke struck and exposed me. When I told him that I had been going through a “questioning period” wondering whether God existed or not, He said bluntly, “You lost faith.” Next, when I told him that I wanted to believe in God with my whole heart but could not, He stated, “You either have faith or you do not. There is no in-between.”
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Finally, He asked me, “What did you do after leaving the Catholic Church?” I proudly told him that to avoid the hypocrisies of listening to the gospel without practicing it, I led community service projects. In response, He said, “How could you be so selfish?” Ouch. I was humbled to see that in the process of doing God’s work, I had completely forgotten about God.
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At the end when I was thanking the tow truck driver for all his words of wisdom, He boldly stated, “You still don’t get it, do you?” Somewhat bewildered, I listened as He spelled it out for me: “It was not me speaking. It was God speaking through me, to you.” That’s when it clicked. Earlier I had earnestly pleaded, “God, I need to talk to you.” He answered my prayer.
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As I got out of the truck, the last thing He said to me was, “You don’t have to worry about your car. It’s fine.” Still somewhat skeptical, I took the car into the shop. A few days later I received a call. “Ma’am we’ve checked everything, and there is nothing wrong with your car.” That’s when it hit me: it was not the car that needed towing—it was me. That day the Lord saved me by being towing me back to faith.