Bad Luck & God's Plans

Have you ever heard that saying, 'If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all?'...or something to the affect. To be honest, this is a very fitting quote for our family. We just seem to go through periods where it seems everything that can possibly go wrong, absolutely will go wrong for us! I could list a million examples of this, but I'll spare you the details and just say it was the 'bad luck' of ours that landed us at the Ford dealership, unexpectedly in the market for a new vehicle. Driving a large truck and gas prices the way they are, we had considered several times the possibility of trading it in for something better on gas, but ultimately each time we decided against it, since the truck was completely paid off, reliable and really, quite handy to have. Skip forward to a week or so ago and things started going crazy. First, during our first night in Indy, our tire-less than a year old- blows out, and of course the jack that was in the truck is broken. No big deal though, a few hours waiting and roadside assistance has us back on the road. (Thank you, USAA!) Then, a few days ago, on the way to my grandmother's funeral, things REALLY started going downhill. Our once reliable truck suddenly seemed as though it was on it's last leg of life. Again, I'll spare you the boring details, because honestly all this car talk is way over my head, but the trouble was eventually found and fixed, but the end conclusion was, it may or may not have greatly reduced the life of the vehicle. Being a one vehicle family (not including the motorcycle, of course) we decided it wasn't worth the risk and thought it'd be better to trade in what we had than to wait to have nothing to trade in! And so, off to the dealership we went. We were dreading this because we really did not want to add a car payment to our monthly bills! Ah, that stinkin' luck of ours strikes again.

But the thing about that luck, though bad things seem to happen just when things are on the upswing, and they tend to happen in bulk...somehow something/someone always comes along and we always seem to make it through. For instance, a few years back when we were stranded in Yuma, AZ after our previous vehicle died on the way home, with just enough money to cover our hotel stay with little extra left over, we met a group of bikers who adopted us into their group and helped us out with food, etc so we weren't as stressed about things.  This is perhaps an extreme example, but one of many, which brings us back to the car...we looked and looked and stressed and stressed (okay, maybe that was just me), unsure of how much, if anything we would get for our trade-in. While they were doing the inspection on the truck, I stumbled on a Ford Fusion that seemed perfect for our needs...smaller than what we were used to obviously, but plenty of room for our family of 3 and a trunk full of groceries! It was just a few years old (2009), had built in bluetooth, saving us the expense of adding that later, leather seats that the husband liked and so on. I don't know much about vehicles, I just knew it was cute, and what we had been looking at in the new vehicles, so I brought my husband over, only to find that it was loaded and would probably be out of our price range, but when they came back with their offer on our truck, we asked anyway and found it was WELL within our budget. In fact, with the price of gas, this car payment will probably equal out to the gas bill for the truck (which was costing $100 to fill...yikes!) and eventually SAVE us money. On top of that, it had a built in navigation system! Now this is where I did my little happy dance (okay, not REALLY, but on the inside). For this directionally challenged lady here, that feature is a necessity...especially since the maps feature on my phone likes to put me in random locations. Suddenly, while we still hated seeing the truck go, everything seemed to be working out for the better. Then, as an added bonus, the dealer informed us that there was a commissary just 12 minutes from our new house...not being near a base we didn't even consider this to be a possibility! For those who don't know, the commissary is the military grocery store where prices tend to be MUCH, MUCH cheaper. Had we not walked into the dealership, we might not have found out for ages, or at all, that it was there, saving us even more money! Whew!

'If God brings you to it, he will bring you through it.' Perhaps this is a better quote for us. Through all the bad luck and mishaps, we always make it through in the end and usually for the better! While we would greatly prefer this crazy things would stop coming our way, we will continue to try and keep our heads up and know that this is all just temporary and we will come through somehow, just as we always do and know that this is all God's plan for us, and while it may not be the plan we were hoping for, He knows better than us so who are we to argue!?

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."- Jeremiah 29:11


(More on the move and Shaun's adjustment as we continue to get settled! Still lots to do!!)