Our Trip back to Michigan Together after Our Engagement

(Post by Emily Harlan) 

Another chapter to this adventure we call life! D, and I woke up on Tuesday, and went to lunch with D’s mom and his friend Chris. We left for Toledo, Ohio where a friend from BBC lives now with his family as he interns at church. Keep in mind that we are driving separately since we arrived in Ohio at different times.  My wonderful fiancé` who is always planned down to the minute had us leaving his house to arrive in Toledo at 5 pm to meet for dinner than attend a high school basketball game. We started off on the bitter cold (-1 degrees) afternoon and got onto the Ohio turnpike. We were on the turnpike about 35 minutes when D lets me know that he wanted to stop off at the Service Plaza for a restroom break, so we pulled off, went in and spent some time walking around enjoying our time together. We head back to the cars and start to get in our cars when I realize that I cannot unlock my car! (My car has an automatic car remote thing, and no key to unlock. I know, dumb, but I have never owned one for my car.) My remote buttons for my car were not working! We tried everything but to no avail. Our only option was to go to the nearest convenience store to buy a new little battery for my car remote. So we get in his truck and drive to the nearest town, 35 minutes away, and get there when it hits us that since we are on the turnpike we have to pay each time we get on and off the pike.

So D and I get the battery, replace it, and then as we are driving away from Wal-Mart another fact hits us….the service center was on the westbound turnpike…we will have  to drive past the service plaza and go the nearest town to get off the east bound, and then get back on the westbound to get to the service plaza! To our dismay the nearest exit past the service plaza was the very town we got ON the turnpike at the beginning of the trip 35 minutes past the eastbound plaza. As my fiancé is always quick to see God’s sovereignty in all things, it was hard on his patience  this time to have to drive back and forth back and forth paying tolls and wasting gas money to get this taken care of. Finally we get back to the service plaza and try my key remote but soon realized that my car was dead! (Earlier in the day as we were driving D had called me to tell me I needed my lights on since the weather was bad. Well my car’s lights automatically go on as soon as dusk hits so I had to manually turn them on, but I had forgotten to turn them off because I was not used to having to do it!!)

So, since I had left them on we had no life in the car to even get the remote to work on the power locks! As you can imagine this did not sit well with my beloved Dewalt as we were now royally late for this appointment with our friends still an hour away! So another detail I have forgotten to add is this, since we were just running into the service plaza for a quick stop, I had left my cell phone and wallet in my now, locked, and dead car.  So thankfully, I do have AAA but I didn’t have the number or my account number, so we trudged despondently into the service plaza to get a phone book and get the number for AAA. We get in and try and find a phone book and find the number after some difficulty by the staff to even find one! After a very complicated conversation with the AAA dispatchers we got service to come  and help us in 45 minutes. We decided to just go on ahead and eat dinner at the plaza as we waited and as we sat down to our greasy calzones from a fast food restaurant we bowed our heads to say blessing. Dewalt started talking and stopped at about, “Dear Father we tha….” And chuckles and continues, “…Well Lord this is really hard right now for me….I guess we are thankful for your will and that you have helped us keep safe and got us help when we needed. We also thank you for this ordained time to spend time with each other to learn more about each other and to love you. Keep us safe for the rest of the night, we love you and thank you for Your Son, Christ, Amen.”

We both smiled as we looked at each other and just chuckled at the complete absurdity of the whole situation but knew that we couldn’t change it and just accepted the time together as we waited for the tow truck with the jumper cables and the car unlocker.

Finally my car was unlocked and jumped and we were able to head back onto the road to Toledo, but before we headed off we stood in the cold holding each other and stopped to thank the Lord one more time for his provision and for a safe ride the rest of the way home. So, Thank the Lord for little times where he tests our patience and love for each other and Himself!!