A Flat Tire and God’s Protection

The other day my nine year old brother, Patrick, and I were driving along when I heard a weird clunking noise that seemed to be coming from my front left tire.
I told Patrick, “I am gonna pull off and see what’s wrong.”
I hopped out to find that my tire was very flat. Like it was almost driving on the rim.
Thankfully I was on a road that has a fairly wide berm, so I got my car off the road completely and called Dad. Thank God for Dad’s that put up with their daughters calling about mechanical issues! Unfortunately, he was two hours away and couldn’t come help me. He said everything to put the spare on should be in my car and if I can’t figure it out, call him and he’ll walk me through it.
While we were in the process of figuring this out, a big, dark green van pulled up behind me, and a guy that I would label as creepy came over and asked if we needed help.
I was like, “Well, my tire is kinda flat.”
So he got down and tried taking the nuts off, but he couldn’t, so he called his buddy who had a bigger lug to come. He’s like, “yeah, there’s a young lady here with her son…” and I am thinking, “how old do I look?”
In the meantime, I was getting something out of my car, and I laid my phone and key on the seat, and shut the door. What do you know, the doors were locked. Talk about a bad day gone worse. I just wanted to scream. The last thing I wanted this alleged “creep” to know was that now I didn’t have my phone, but I asked him if he wanted to try to unlock my car anyway. Thankfully the trunk was open and the back seat easily went down enough for Patrick to crawl in and get my stuff.
By then this man’s friend came, as well as another random guy who stopped by. They were all of the same stripe; tattoos, smoking, and just rough looking.

Eventually they got the flat tire off and tried putting the spare on. But since I never needed the spare before, I had never looked at it, and unfortunately it was not made for my car. The bolt patterns just didn’t quite line up.
Kinza was about 20 minutes from me, so she headed over to pick us up. I told these guys she was coming and they could go it they wanted. But they said they weren’t going anywhere until she came. So they waited there until we got the flat in her car and made sure I had my key and the doors were locked (they were very concerned that I do this right) and we were on our way.

I know that God was there the entire hour we sat along the road. Never would I have felt safe with those guys or trusted them, but maybe they were trustworthy. Maybe they weren’t. But I do know that whether it was the symbolism of my head covering or simply God’s presence, we were protected and God used those men to help us. The whole situation also taught me not to immediately judge people just by their looks. Everyone is created and loved by God and has the potential for great things.

Written by Ginger