Breanna Dillon's Blog
Car wrecks, hospitality, and pride / 05.18.09, 12:57 PM
God is so good. I totaled my car—my first car ever, my 1991 Volvo 240 Sedan—on Wednesday. On my way to work I reached for my purse, which I had hung around the passenger’s side headrest, because I wanted to get out my tracfone to see what time it was (i.e. how late I was to work) when my phone received signal a few miles down the road. My purse strap slipped in between the headrest and the door, so I gave it one last jerk. My left hand (which was on the steering wheel) veered right, and when I realized I was off the road and heading down/over a little berm, it was too late. I cashed into a fence, ripping up about three large fence posts, knocking down a couple more, and demolishing a good portion of the fence. My car is totally dead. But I walked away without even a scratch.
Now to take a more extended look at God’s grace. First of all, a month or so ago, I broke the little pull thing that pops open my hood so I can lift the hood. So the mechanic across the street had to break into my hood (in order to change my oil) by taking out my grill. He wanted to trip something up for me so I could get in my hood myself, so he left the grill off with the understanding that I’d bring my car back over and he’d figure something out. I brought my car over a couple of times after that, but it was never a good time, and with our schedules not coinciding my grill was still in the back seat of my car when I wrecked. I very much believe that that was God’s providence, though, because it seems to me that my hood popped open all the more easily when I wrecked because my grill wasn’t there. The entire front portion of my car (like the horn and front bumper or something like that) was ripped out/ broken by the crash and the barbed wire I ran into, and my hood flew open basically upon impact, deflecting flying fence posts. One fence post (maybe five inches square) hit the roof of my car, leaving a square dent/ impression not even an inch from my windshield on the driver’s side. Had my grill not been gone, maybe my hood wouldn’t have flown open so soon (or maybe at all?)… Maybe the barbed wire or just the impact ripped out the front of my car, grilless as it was, and flew my hood open… And had my hood not flown open (or maybe had it just not flown open so soon), that fence post that left an impression on the roof of my car may have come through the windshield at me. I could be dead or really injured right now.
And as if God’s protection isn’t already obvious and awesome already, it was likewise about a month or so ago that my supplemental restraint system light came on. I had decided not to mess with fixing it because it would be so expensive, so I kept driving my car, knowing that my airbags most likely wouldn’t deploy were I to crash. Then, when I crashed Wednesday, my airbags, as expected, didn’t deploy. For that I was and still am thankful, because my airbag probably would have hurt me—I could have gotten a black eye, a broken nose, broken glasses (and cuts and stuff)… something from the airbags. But, as I said before, I walked away without even a scratch.
It’s an inconvenience now not to have a car, but Dave and Lisa (the owners of April’s Pizzeria where I work part time in addition to working part time at Food Lion) are letting me stay at their house when I’m scheduled to work at night either at April’s or at Food Lion. I have to figure out how to get to Marlinton come June when I’m supposed to work with Energy Express (an AmeriCorps-ran summer reading program for elementary school kids) there, but I know that all in God’s plan will come to fruition.
I am so blessed to have walked away from my wreck untouched (and with my car’s grill, license plate, and CD player, to boot!), and I’m so blessed to be the recipient of the wonderful hospitality Dave and Lisa are showing me. The other night (Thursday night—the first night I stayed at Dave and Lisa’s place), Lisa gave me a piece of paper with their home phone number on it to give to my mom should she ever want or need to get in touch with me while I’m at their place. And before she gave/ handed me that she gave me an 800-minute calling card should I want to call my mom from their home phone (seeing as how I just have a tracfone and where I live is long distance from where Dave and Lisa live). I am so blessed, and while it feels a little awkward right now for me to be receiving such hospitality, it is such a blessing to see true hospitality in action and to be reminded of how I, too, need mercy and hospitality from others. Sometimes with a mind and heart set to give to and help others it’s all too easy to feel pride and to believe oneself to be above needing help yourself. For all practical purposes, my independence has been taken from me. I have to lean on others now, now just in some abstract sense but in terms of being able to keep my jobs and make it to where I’m going (Mission Year, at this point in my life).
And writing about this reminds me of the other day at work and of one day while I was working at Food Lion. The other day at April’s, Marti (a waitress I work with) was waitressing and I was the hostess. I cashed a guy out in the game room when he won some money from a slot machine and he gave me five dollars. I gave it to Marti even though she protested, and I promptly felt all warm, fuzzy, and righteous. Later, when the same guy gave Marti five dollars, she gave it to me even though I protested. “It’s fair,” she said. And I shut up. Something as simple as that is a lesson more than worth learning (and a lesson apparently needing to be learned more than once). Many Christians have a true desire to do good. Many Christians want to give and help and “do the right thing” when it comes to treating other people fairly and with goodness, mercy, and justice. But what about letting someone else treat you with goodness, mercy, and justice? Many of the same Christians who want to give and help and “do the right thing” never want to receive help from someone else, even when maybe the “right thing” to do is to acknowledge their own need for others’ help—their own dependence on others or on community for their very human existence—and the other person’s dignity and right to help others. It’s easy to give, even thinking that one’s motivation to give is entirely pure, because giving strokes one’s pride, feeds it. But to accept from another what you feel you should only give and never receive yourself, that is a lesson in humility and the interconnectedness of humanity and even the body of Christ.
Along the same lines, the other day (a few weeks ago) at Food Lion, I showed up to work wearing my regular uniform—no shirt underneath my Food Lion T-shirt to keep me warm or anything. It was a cold and windy day, and I was placed at a register near/ next to the doors. The doors would open, the wind would blow… and, obviously, I would freeze. “I’ll be lucky to get outta here without getting sick,” I thought to myself, dreading the rest of my shift. A few minutes after I was on the clock, however, a little girl and her grandmother came through my line. Somehow I ended up telling them that I lived far away and had no way to get a jacket or an undershirt brought to me. They left the store, and by the time I had helped the next customer or two the little girl was back in the store, trying to get my attention to the right of the register. I turned around and the little girl help up a pink/ mauve jacket and said, “Maw-maw told me to give this to you. She’ll come back later to get it.” At first I thought, “Oh no, I couldn’t,” half-way because I felt bad for someone else to lend me a jacket and maybe half-way because the jacket was obviously of an older person’s style (and it definitely didn’t match my navy blue Food Lion shirt). But I thankfully accepted the gift-on-loan, and told the little girl to tell her grandma thank you and that I got off of work at such-and-such a time. It felt strange for me to accept such thoughtfulness from a stranger, especially when it seemed to my petty human judgment that the little girl and her grandma had less than I do, materially-speaking. I know that I’ve been given clothes and hand-me-downs and what-not before, but a sensation came over me as I accepted that jacket that day like I had never felt before. I thought of Matthew 25 and of Jesus’ teaching (and command, in true essence) to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those who are sick and in prison… And I knew that in that moment I was naked and someone else clothed me.
It is so easy to be proud. It is so easy to give or help another person and to feel smug about it without ever knowing yourself to be smug. But it’s not so easy to be humble, to realize that you stand no taller than the rest and that you, too, are so many times a helpless wanderer along the Way. To accept five dollars from someone else and not be able to pat yourself on the back and say, “Good job putting someone else before yourself.” To accept a jacket from someone you had judged as having less than you and not be able to think of yourself as being on a higher plain than they are… To accept hospitality and unmerited care when you were so stupid as to reach for your purse and wreck your car in the first place… Maybe these are the simple and most beautiful lessons of humility and life. I wouldn’t trade such simplicity for the world, and it is my heart’s desire and prayer to know more and more of the meekness and justice of my Savior, the one who not only healed others but also let others open their homes to him and care for him and his disciples. The one who not only gave himself but also proclaimed that whoever would follow him would have to give themselves, too—that whoever would follow him would have to take up their cross (and we all know where that’s going). The one who not only restored lives but who also praised the poor widow who gave all she had as an offering to God. The one who allowed a repentant woman to break a box of precious ointment over his feet before his death and resurrection and who praised that same woman for doing so. For any person who ever does anything in the name of Christ and his kingdom: no work can ever be done in true holiness unless the dignity of others and the frailty an dependence of our own selves is acknowledged. We are not only givers but of necessity also receivers. In the words of I don’t remember who, “We are just beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.” May we walk this road together, and may we live true justice, holiness, and redemption.
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