CHAPTER 4
THE TIRE STORY
While this story isn’t the first chronological event, it’s the one I usually share with people who need an example of what I am talking about when I advise them to allow God to intercede in a simple situation.
In the early 2000s, I walked away from my business and chose to go to college. For me, it was really important to focus on school without any interference, so I was not working and was living solely on grant funding I received from various sources. I had a pickup that had tires on it that were really worn down. It was springtime, so I wasn’t especially worried, and because of a limited gas budget, I restricted my driving to the local area. Repeatedly, I had friends and, a couple of times, total strangers tell me that my tires were dangerously bald. I knew they were right, but tires on a pickup don’t usually run cheap, even when purchasing the least expensive brand. For some reason, which I can’t remember, one of the tires had been replaced for free in March of that year, which left me with one new tire and three bald ones. As summer started passing, and the tires didn’t miraculously grow new tread, I was starting to get concerned because nobody wants to have bald tires in Colorado during the winter. The other problem that presented itself is the fact that having only one tire with full treads altered the balance and, if I had to use the four-wheel drive option, could actually harm my truck.
At this point, I had been well into my journey of learning who God was, had experienced provision, and was fully persuaded that the need for tires would be met. Yes, I could have found a part-time job, borrowed money from a friend, or taken out a credit card, but with no steady income, it didn’t seem wise to take on even a small amount of debt without the means to pay it back, and the key to this story is the fact that I just had the general sense that I needed to simply be still and wait. As I could, I always tried to give to others around me. My heart was therefore open, so I believed I was set up for a miraculous intervention. The weeks went by, and as people kept making comments, I simply said, “I am not worried about it, God will come through.” While this answer exasperated many of my friends, I stood my ground. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, a part of me still questioned my choice as it ran in contrast with how I was raised regarding the obligation to keep my vehicle safe and be a responsible driver. However, I kept thanking God that He had the situation covered.
This went on for months and my impatience started to grow. One afternoon I walked out to put something in my truck and I noticed that the rear passenger side tire had a big bulge in it. It looked like a blister that was about to pop. No exaggeration, I completely lost it! I started swearing, literally out loud at God, basically telling Him that He was a liar and that He was abandoning me, even though I had been telling people that He was good, and would come through for me without me having to do anything. I was angry, but at the root was a deep hurt that I had been made to look stupid. I had regretted not trying to find a part-time job to pay for tires and I had regretted expressing my love and faith in something or someone who I now believed to be an inconsistent jerk. He had come through in other areas, but now He was choosing to bail and I was DONE!
Believing God had failed me, I knew that I had to take things into my own hands, as God was apparently busy helping someone else, so I did the only thing I could do in the moment. I called the local tire store and asked them if they would be willing to put the spare on my truck for free, and when I got my next allotment of funding, I would come buy tires. I had no personal connection to this store, so nobody had a reason to go above and beyond to help me. The gentleman on the phone was very pleasant and agreed, so I immediately drove to the store, hoping the entire 1.8 miles that my tire wouldn’t explode en route. When I arrived at the store, the manager came out and looked at the bulge on my tire. He examined the tire for thirty seconds or so and then started walking around the truck inspecting all four tires. I was sitting on my tailgate feeling sorry for myself while he was doing his thing. A couple of minutes later, he made his way back around to the back where I sat, still pouting, and said something along the lines of, “I have good news and bad news.” He proceeded to tell me that three of my tires were very bald with no life left on them, HOWEVER, if I had replaced them sooner and they were not that bald, he would not have been able to see the manufacturer’s defect in all of the remaining three tires, and he was going to just replace all of them … FOR FREE!
Less than an hour later, I was safely driving home with brand-new, high-end tires while sobbing and thanking God that He had a plan all along. I felt humbled and loved by a being that I had never seen or been able to physically embrace, but my expectation for provision was permanently changed in that moment.
CHAPTER 5
AN UNDENIABLE "SIGN"
Anyone who gets to know me will quickly learn that part of the formation of my personality, independence, and tomboy inclination, is rooted in the fact that I grew up on a ranch in Littleton, Colorado. When I was five years old, we moved to the ranch to take care of my aging grandmother. I cherish those early days of working in the hay fields, riding horses, delivering calves at 2 a.m., when I had school the next morning, riding around on my little motorcycle, and the multiple other activities and chores that formed my individuality. When I was fourteen, we moved to the Western Slope of Colorado, as my parents had sold the ranch to Denver Tech Center for development. I hated every second of this process. The ranch was my home and I was devastated at the loss and, in the spirit of full authenticity, I have carried the desire to buy it all back, tear down the homes, and rebuild old rugged barns in their place.
In early 2002, when I was twenty-six, I was struggling with my identity, what I believed about God, and was still feeling lost. I felt like my past and my life was completely out of order, and I knew I needed some level of closure. I am a very visual and symbolic person, so as I processed my options, an idea “popped into my head.” I decided to go back down to the ranch, find a place to pray on the property, and thought that perhaps being on my old turf would help settle my heart. It was a beautiful spring day, so I grabbed my journal and drove the hour and a half from Fort Collins to Littleton. When I arrived at the property, I was shocked at the development. I had been up there in years previous and seen that development had started, but I was astonished at the size of the homes that were being built. Truthfully, they were odd. These were multi-million dollar homes, and though they were spread out over many acres, they were in the middle of what were originally hay fields and seemed out of place. In addition to the oversized houses that were unfamiliar to me, the roads had been rerouted, so it took me a bit to find my bearings. As I turned the corner on one road, I spotted the perfect place to make camp for an hour or so.
When we had first moved to the ranch, there was a disgusting pond that my dad took his bulldozer to, cleaned out the muck, and rerouted irrigation to keep the water fresh. After a clean pond emerged, my dad and I spent a summer day building a dock. Though I am unsure why, we painted it bright orange. For years, we fished off that dock, ice-skated, had camp-outs, and generally made many memories from that spot. Though I had been to the ranch in 1999 and the dock was there, I was stunned to see that it hadn’t been torn down when the 8,000 + square foot homes were built on either side of the pond just prior to this 2002 visit. My heart warmed as I saw this familiar wooden landmark, though it was now stripped of all color from decades of Colorado weather.
Sitting on the dock that day, I spent time journaling, taking in the familiar, albeit altered scenery, and reconnected to the emotions and memories of my past. I prayed for people who I loved and lost. I prayed for those currently in my life. I prayed for my direction. I even prayed for the new landowners and hoped they would find even a sliver of the joy that I had on the property. At one point, during my prayer time, the song, “Already There,” by Lonestar, came into my heart, and during the verse that says, “I’m the whisper in the wind, I’m your imaginary friend,” I was really touched. Not only was there a warm breeze
blowing, but I reflected on being a very lonely child and talking to what I believed was an imaginary friend. In the moment, I realized that God had heard all of the goofy banter of that younger me, skipping through the fields, barefoot, climbing trees, and otherwise finding mischievous things to do to keep me busy. Still wondering a bit if it were God speaking to me through the song or just my own emotion, I distinctly prayed and asked God that if He was in fact there with me for this trip back in time, He would show me a sign, and I literally used the word “sign.”
I sat for another few minutes and decided that, before I left, I would drive down to the sales office that had been set up on another portion of the property. At the time, not all of the lots had been sold and there was a small temporary building erected to allow potential buyers to get information. Because I had clearly been on private property, I wanted someone to know who I was so that there was no perceived threat to anyone who saw a stranger roaming around. When I went into the office, there was a very friendly woman who greeted me, and when I identified who I was, she seemed to be enthused to meet someone who had history with the land. I don’t remember why, but she wanted to get my information and asked me to come back to her desk. When I walked into her office, my legs literally started buckling underneath me and I immediately sat down quite hard in a chair. I must have turned ghost white because she seemed startled and asked, “Are you okay?” I just pointed to a giant picture on her wall. The picture was literally of the sign my dad and I built when I was very young that identified the property as Appledoor Ranch. I distinctly remember building the sign as my dad let me use the router, and as I was making the A, my hand slipped and one side of the letter was longer than the other. When we moved, the sign was left on the property. I asked God for a sign that He was there, and I don’t think He could have answered any more clearly.
As I gathered my thoughts and explained to this very confused sales lady what was transpiring, she proceeded to let me know that before Denver Tech Center started developing, they had sent a professional photographer to take photos of the land for brochures and other promotional items, and they had enlarged this photo of the original sign for the sales office. She gave me a contact number of a woman who had access to the negatives, and within a few weeks, I was able to go and look at all of the negatives and get copies of some of the best photos ever taken of the ranch.
This story has become a landmark event that I often reflect on when I am wondering if God is with me in moments of emotional need. If my heart ever doubts that, I simply open a photo album that contains, among many memories, a photo of an old rustic sign.
CHAPTER 6
A MIRACLE FROM GERMANY
From 1999 to 2003, I was trying to find my way spiritually and rebuild my financial business after relocating to Fort Collins. Though I survived financially, there were a lot of seasons of struggle, mostly because I knew my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I had settled in a small executive suite, and most of the agents who worked for me were part-time and worked out of their homes, but would use the various conference rooms available to meet with their own clients. It was a great setup. At one point, however, I had three agents decide to go full-time, and the office accommodations were no longer suitable. I decided to take the leap of faith and rent more space within the same building. I have to admit, this decision involved more practicality than it did prayer, which should have been my first red flag. I ignored my gut feeling that it wasn’t a good idea, and I chalked my nervousness up to my overly conservative financial mind, as I was not a big risk taker.
My friend Lissa was the leasing broker for the building complex. She facilitated the process, I signed the new lease, and the agents moved in. They all agreed to pay rent and the combination would cover the expense. Within a few short months, my worst nightmare came true. All of the agents bailed, and I was left to carry the monetary load at a time where I myself was in transition. Within just a few short months, I was behind on rent, the landlord was breathing down my neck, and I was embarrassed because Lissa had spoken highly of me, which is why I was able to add the space to my lease without any upfront money. In a business where confidence and a positive attitude are critical, I was quickly losing both.
Once a $4,500 debt accumulated, the landlord put his foot down and said, “Enough!” I was told that I had a week to pay off the debt in full or he was going to padlock the office doors. By this time, I had found a few new agents to work within the office and having their leader default on a lease payment, resulting in a lockout, would have been a disaster by anyone’s standards. We also had upcoming business deals, and I didn’t want to lose them because of a credibility issue, but I was stuck. I had absolutely no solution. The tire story hadn’t happened yet, so my believing that God would come through was essentially nonexistent, especially given the fact that I had gotten myself in this stupid mess because of an unwise choice to bite off more than I could chew. I had just met a couple who really believed in financial miracles, so I reluctantly went to them with the problem. They told me not to give up and just ask God what to do. That’s what I did.
As the deadline approached for payment, I sat at my desk journaling and praying, and I can’t really explain what happened other than I knew I needed to simply write the check. I did not hear an audible voice, but it was as if someone had spoken right into my heart and told me what to do. It really confused me because I had never intentionally written a check without the funds in the account to cover it. I called one of my other conservative friends to tell her what was going on. I went over to her house and she proceeded with a stern lecture. She told me I was acting inappropriately and God would never tell me to write a bad check. It was irresponsible, “testing God,” and I had no business even considering it. While I agreed with her, I was not at peace, and I had this nagging feeling that I had to write the check. I called the friends who had originally told me to seek God and they seemed to have a different take. They advised me that if I “knew” that I was supposed to write it, I better listen.
At one point in this series of unfolding events, the payment became due by the end of the business day. The landlord had already inquired, through my friend, as to whether or not I was going to pay. I tried metaphorically “wearing” the decision to write the check and the opposite, to not write the check. Finally, I figured that I had nothing to lose. If I wrote the check and it bounced, it bounced, and it wouldn’t change the end result… being evicted. I grabbed my checkbook and wrote the check for $4,500. Though I was nervous, and questioned my own sanity, I was oddly at peace. I submitted my payment to Lissa, who alerted the landlord that I had paid, and I drove home. On my way home, something occurred to me concerning the concept of the “bad check.” If God had a plan to cover it, then it wasn’t a bad check. I only hoped that I was on the right track.
I don’t remember the exact details pertaining to the days, but I know there were a few days of delay, which were likely because of the weekend. On what I believe was the following Monday or Tuesday, Lissa called and told me that she believed something big was going to happen and encouraged me to stay calm. I couldn’t believe she was being supportive, especially considering everyone knew that she and I were friends and my default could make her look bad too. When I inquired, she told me that the landlord was skeptical (imagine that). He told the bookkeeper to call and verify funds prior to cashing the check because he didn’t want to bother depositing a bad check and complicate his own accounting. Apparently, the bookkeeper called my bank to verify several times but, for whatever reason, the bank’s system was down and they couldn’t access my account. Oddly, I was encouraged.
The next morning, I received a call from the friend who advised me to listen to what my heart was telling me, and trust that it was God speaking. He asked the status of the situation. When I told him, he laughed with amusement and proceeded to tell me that another close friend of theirs was also in a financial pickle, however, that morning he received a call from someone in Germany who, without so
licitation, was gifting him with money. Ironically, it was the exact amount to cover both of our debts. He told me that I better get to their house, pick up the check, and go to the bank before the landlord moved forward in cashing my check, which was now several days old. I did just that, and when I checked the account the next morning, the deposit hit and the check cleared on the same cycle. Nobody involved could really believe what had just happened. This nudge to write a check without funds has never happened again, and I want to be clear that I do not condone doing so just to see if God will come through.
There were a lot of valuable lessons in this situation. Beyond the pragmatic lesson of not over-committing financially, there were others. First, I learned that when I have peace about something, but want confirmation, it is critical to be prayerful about who to confide in. I could have easily been talked out of listening to God by people who, although they were trying to help, were giving advice contrary to what God was saying. Second, sometimes the plan is contrary to what would make any sense. In fact, I have learned that it almost never makes sense. Third, God is always on time and is never late, although in my case he’s rarely early, otherwise I wouldn’t be stretched to trust him. Lastly, what got my attention, and has stayed with me since, is the fact that my friends were obedient to what they believed God was leading them to do. Someone gave them several thousands of dollars, and rather than using it for themselves, they saw that it was provision for others around them. As a result, to this day, when I get a gift, I always stop and consider if it is for me or for someone else. Sometimes I get the privilege of being the funnel, not just the recipient, and other times, it really is just a gift for me to enjoy.
Audible Hallucinations: A Free Spirit's Journey In Discovering WHOSE She Really Is Page 2
