Barn Car Tire

In 1997, I finished my education at Washington University in St. Louis.  We packed the five kids and our suitcases into our two old cars, and headed cross-country from Missouri to my new job location in Tempe, AZ.  We made it as far as Kansas when the old station wagon my wife was driving suddenly started to jar.  We pulled over, and discovered that one of our front tires had developed a huge bulge and was ready to blow.  We were literally in the middle of nowhere, with cornfields as far as the eye could see in every direction.  But about a half of a mile back, we recalled passing a large barn-like building off the side of the highway which we could still see in the distance.  We turned around and nursed the car along to the exit, and pulled over to the barn.  It turned out to be a farm equipment co-op that fixed tractors and such.  The attendant in the barn scratched his head and told us we were unfortunately out of luck – that they only carried farming equipment and couldn’t help us with the car.  We were also told the nearest town was miles away.  With a prayer in my heart, I glanced around in vain as I considered what to do.  I suddenly noticed that way up by the rafters towards the roof, in the dim light about thirty feet above our heads, was a solitary car-sized tire hanging on a wooden dowel against the wall.  “What about that tire?”, I asked.  The attendant said he hadn’t noticed that tire forever, but he was able to eventually scale around to the loft area and get the tire down.  Sure enough, though the tire was used and old, it was a car tire that was exactly the size of tire our car needed.  A few minutes later, we were happily and gratefully back on the road towards Tempe.  

LESSON LEARNED:  When the answer is no, keep a prayer in your heart and press forward in faith.  

FEEDBACK:  WHAT IS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH A PRAYER BEING ANSWERED?