Our van was acting very weird after coming 90% of the way through our mountain vacation. My husband had just asked who we should pray to for intercession. I replied, "I think Our Lady has this one." Immediately, the van lost power. We knew that Mass would be starting in this small town in 20 minutes, so we decided to spend the hour in prayer first, THEN we'd figure out what in the world to do about 8 people stuck in the middle of Colorado with a van full of "Thrift Store Santa" gifts and a week's worth of luggage.
When we walked in to St. Rose of Lima parish and saw 5 women in white habits and black veils, I knew that we'd be okay. My guardian angel leads me to Nashville Dominicans regularly. After Mass, we explained our situation to the sisters, who promised us that they would pray.
As we walked back to our car, I was disappointed. Matt and I both thought that somehow we'd have more answers after going to Mass, but so far we were in the same place we were before. We could get a hotel room, sure, but with no mechanics open for two days and no car rentals for 100+ miles, we were really feeling stuck.
"How about I just go and ask Father if there is anyone in the parish that might be able to help us if we get stuck on the way out of town?"
As I headed back to the doors of the church, the group of sisters were walking toward me. "We were thinking," one of them said, "we're going to Denver. How about we give you our cell # in case you van breaks down on the way?" Gratefully, I programmed the sister's cell into my phone.
I still decided to find out if Father thought there was a parishioner who could help us, but Father had already gone to the rectory. I asked the parishioners who were locking up if any of them would be able to help us if we got stuck. "Of course," a nice woman replied, as she scribbled down her husband's cell phone number next to hers. "And you can always stay at our home if you need to. We have plenty of room." She also boldly went and asked Father to come out of the rectory and bless our car. (He did!)
Confident that we would be okay, we decided to try it again. The van (with a new transmission, mind you) could not make it up the hill outside of town.
Long story short, we ended up staying at the home of this amazing family. The wife was the Religious Education director of their parish, the husband is in diaconate formation, and their son plans to enter seminary next fall. My daughter, Leah, remarked, "Wow. They are so nice. I wonder if they are Polish?!" Turns out they were very Polish. We saw no less than three images of Our Lady of Czestochowa on the walls of their home and her parish classroom. See? Our Lady wanted us to go to Mass!
We stayed up for hours talking to our new friends about all manner of things and formulated the only plan that could possibly have worked: they would loan us their 8-passenger vehicle (which they only use to pull their camper) so we could drive to Denver in the morning where we could rent a vehicle to get home. We could leave the vehicle with one of their family members up there.
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| On Our Way to Denver in a Borrowed SUV |
- Whenever something doesn't go as expected, look out for your guardian angel because something amazing is going to happen.
- If we had not expected God to take care of us, we would never have met the wonderful family who said to us, "Thank you so much for this gift of being able to serve you."
- Be radically generous, and be willing to receive radical generosity. Families are in a special situation of being able to serve in this way, even more so than the priest or the sisters were able to do. Think about it: the Good Samaritan was just a regular old guy. (My husband was the one who made that connection!)
So families: Be bold! Give radically. Receive radically. How else can God show others how much He loves them or show you how much He loves you?
3 comments:
Love. Praise Jesus.
Praise be to God!
Matt and Mandie I'm so moved by your experience. God, works in mysterious ways... Aunt Annis
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