Saturday I took my first trip to Billings. Billings is 170 miles away and a three hour drive. The day was beautiful and I filled it with errands and an Easter service. As the sun began its journey towards the horizon, I loaded the last of my groceries into my car and turned toward the freeway. As I turned onto the on ramp I noticed my car wasn't driving right and a strange noise came from underneath. There was no shoulder until I was fully on the freeway so I kept driving until I could find a place to pull over. A quick walk around my car revealed a flat tire.
I've never changed a tire. I can hike with bears, but I've never changed a tire. But that wasn't the biggest problem: it was 5 pm on the night before Easter and there would be no business open to get a new tire. I was all dressed up from the Easter service. I was three hours from home. As the cars rushed by me at 80 miles an hour, I began to mull over the situation. A large truck pulled up behind me and a man hopped out. He wore a grease monkey's uniform with "Sean" stitched across the lapel. Sean explained he had been headed the other way on the freeway, saw a car pulled over, got off, and came back up my way to see offer his help. He worked for a local tire shop and was just headed back to the shop to end the day. He'd been out on a house call that went five hours longer than it should have. Sean put on my donut and then offered to take a look at the tire at the shop. I followed him back where he determined the original tire was ruined. He searched through all the used tires at the back and found one that fit my car. He checked my rims, put on the new tire, and wished me well on my drive back to Gardiner.
In Luke chapter 10 Christ tells the parable of "The Good Samaritan" in response to the lawyer's question, "And who is my neighbor?" I felt like the man in the story who was on a long journey and injured on the side of the road, unable to continue. An unlikely man, a Samaritan, came to his rescue and took care of the injured stranger. As I drove home I thought of the Savior's words to the lawyer as he closed his lesson, "Go, and do thou likewise."
2 comments:
That's amazing!! It's nice to know there are such good people in the world. You should let us know the name of the tire shop... last time we were on our way to Canada we ended up buying all new tires, and if it happens again (likely since most things break away from home, and our long road trips are often to Canada), I'd like to go to that shop...
I'm glad you made it back safely!!!
What a good story, and a good reminder of how much our small (and sometimes large) acts of kindness can really make a difference. Thanks, Rach.
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