Get your car out of the gutter, girl!

It has recently been snowing here in Utah, thus launching the season of white-knuckled, brake-tapping, generally terrifying driving experiences we all know and…er…love? It always takes me a few weeks at least to get used to the different way you have to brake and to recall just how to ease your car out of a spin instead of making it go around in a 360.

In short, I’m still in that How the heck do I do this? stage, currently at least another two weeks away from that blessed blissful moment when I'll be able to skid my way uphill with an inch of solid ice on the road and not get stuck even once.

So it really shouldn't have surprised me today when I tried to park on the street just north of my workplace and ended up in the gutter. Yes folks, the gutter. I pulled up into a nice open spot (which was also unfortunately covered with ice) and when I tried to stop the car, it slid down inevitably into the gutter, and just slid more quickly when I hit the brakes in surprise. (Yeah. Smart move there, Lizardbreath.)

So I got stuck in the gutter. And after a few tries of backing up and twisting my wheels to the left and trying to get back on the road again, I just gave up, kicked the car (not really) and let it just sit and think about what it had done while I went in to work.

Work has been stressful this week because of a large sale we had over the weekend which flooded us with orders, phone calls and emails that all urgently needed attention. So I felt frayed and low when I went back out to the car at lunchtime to see if I could get it out of the gutter and into the parking lot of the local Subway shop.

And call me foolish, but I was so distressed that I decided to pray and ask if I could get just a little bit of help to get my car out of the gutter, mainly so I wouldn't have to ask the company's owner if he could tow me up onto the road. I think I couched it in terms like, "I know this isn't a big deal, and you don't have to if you don't want to, but I would really love it if I could just get out of this gutter on my own."

I think I sometimes feel like God is rather reluctant to answer our prayers, as if He sifts through a stack of them, setting some aside because the requests are too insignificant, or don't match precisely what He knows we should want. At times, this feeling makes me believe that God will not answer prayers at all, but that whatever I'm asking for will be answered with a firm "No."

So I was surprised, and very, very grateful when, with a single backing up and a twisting of my front tires to the left, I was able to get my little Geo back up onto firm road, leaving that gutter behind me (I hope for good).

As I drove off to Subway to get lunch, I found myself in tears. I realized (or remembered) that God actually delights in helping us, and I believe that He will aid us in every small or large thing that He can. He's not reluctant to answer prayers; it's just that we're sometimes reluctant to place our faith in Him. That's why He answers a child's prayer to find his lost dinosaur toy, or a student's desperate prayer to remember the mathematical formula she needs on a test, or a sin-bound person's desire to be freed, at last, from his heavy burdens of guilt and pain.

Answering these prayers shows us that He loves us, but they also help us to learn to trust God and to turn to Him again when we have greater need.

It also changes something inside of us. This morning I was a wretched customer service rep who, frazzled, tried to leap from one task to another and berated herself after every phonecall for sounding like an idiot. This afternoon I was me again: Lizardbreath, who has a Heavenly Father who looks out for her and delights in helping her.

And I hope I don't have to slide into the gutter again to be reminded of that.