Once upon a downright chilly Sunday morning, a young woman of almost twenty awoke to the sound of her mother entering her room. She popped her head out of the huge stack of blankets enveloping the bed, and groggily listened as her mom listed off the whole regimen of vitamins that the girl was supposed to take with breakfast. You see, the girl had been fighting a serious cold/flu virus for two days, and her mother wasn't about to let her forget the vitamins. The girl nodded her understanding and buried herself deeper into the plush covers after wishing her mother and family a good day at church.
Eventually, the dull ache of hunger drove the girl to drag herself out of her warm bed and put on a sweatshirt. She plopped sleepily down the stairs and collected all the required vitamins before beginning her breakfast preparation. A bagel with cream cheese sounded great. But while she was doing this, the family dog, Toby, waddled into the kitchen and stood by the double doors leading to the deck. The girl sighed, knowing that the dog had to go out. So she halted her preparations, collected Toby's collar, and took him out on the deck to hook him to his rope. It was freezing outside, so the girl raced back up the steps, and in the process of grabbing the door handle and leaping back inside, she ran full force into the glass. The door wouldn't open. The door was locked.
The realization that she had locked herself out and there was no one home slowly dawned on the girl as she stood helplessly watching her bagels pop out of the toaster and the coffee pot warm up. What was she to do? But she couldn't give up yet! So the girl preceded to try every door, and every ground window of the house. No luck. She tried to open her Dad's shop building to get to a phone. Wouldn't budge. Tried to pull open the garage doors manually...yeah, that was just stupid. Then she searched every nook and cranny that her parents could have possibly hidden a spare key in. Nothing. By this time, her bare feet were bright red and she couldn't really feel them anymore. Her desperation had reached its peak, only one last thing to try. The roof.
She knew she had left her room window unlocked, she just had to find a way to get up there. But with no way to get to the ladder in her Dad's building, she had to be creative. She tried all kinds of different ideas...stacking chairs, climbing the gutter, jumping off a table...needless to say, they all failed, and it's only by God's grace the girl survived. She sat down on the concrete driveway next to her shivering dog, utterly defeated and freezing cold.
But after a few minutes, an idea came to her. She had a spare car key hidden under her bumper! So into the trustworthy Blazer the girl and her dog went. They sat in there a good ten minutes with the heater full blast while the girl thought out a plan. Her family was at church with the key and she had no way to contact them about her plight. So really her only option was to drive there, though she was licenseless, and get it from them before they went to lunch. Her mind made up and her feet defrosted enough to drive, off the duo went. Upon arriving at the church, the girl parked near her parents car and sat back to wait. She wasn't about to go inside looking like she did. Thankfully, she had left her iPod in her car so she had something to entertain herself with.
Around forty minutes later, her parents finally appeared from the church building. She waited until they were close and honked her horn at them. Her mother came walking up to the Blazer with an absolutely hilarious look of total confusion. Yes, there the girl was, the oldest child, too sick to come to church, sitting in her car in the parking lot, hair a mess, wearing sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and no shoes, holding Toby. It was quite a sight. After explaining the entire fiasco, her mother burst into hysterical laughter. The girl finally collected the illusive key and drove back home. The whole ordeal lasted almost two hours.
Turns out, right after the girl drove through the roundabout on the way home, a roadblock was set up to check everyones licenses. Just a good reminder that God works in and throughout our crazy lives :)
