Being Thankful...for a broken car?

So last Sunday, the sermon was on being thankful (no surprise consider Thanksgiving was only a few days away). But a couple of key points hit home and I made it a point to remind myself to say "thank you" to God every time I got into my car. The first thing that always came to mind was that my car started and it was often followed by other things such as good road conditions, light traffic, a chance to learn about animals, etc. So for nearly one week I found myself being grateful each day. So you can imagine my dismay when I got into my car this Sunday morning, a week later, and my car wouldn't start. Not even a sputter. We tried jumping it. Still no luck. And then I began to get upset. I had spent the entire last week making it a point to be thankful for my working car and then God allows my car to break. My thankfulness had been genuine. I have had car trouble off and on this year and I really was thankful that my car was running. It made no sense to me why I would be thankful only to have it taken away. I ended up riding with my parents to church that morning and as the day's events unfolded, I began to see where my faulty thinking went wrong. Yes, my car was dead. Yes, even after it charged for hours, the battery charger declared my battery low....and then dead. But as luck would have it (or rather as God had planned it), there has been a brand new battery sitting in my brother's old, broken car for the past year or so. Dad swapped out the battery and low and behold, now she runs. I began to think how "lucky" it was that I had been at home when my car died. I thought about how "lucky" it was that we had a spare, brand new battery to replace my old one. And I thought about how "lucky" I was to have a dad who knew how to and was willing to help me fix my car. And the more that I thought about it, I started to wonder if my internal prompt to thank God for my working car was because just maybe my car was supposed to break down sometime DURING the week. Maybe my car wasn't supposed to make it home. I would have been stranded somewhere in Columbus, probably when I needed to be getting to school, and I would have had no way and no one to fix my car as easily and as cheaply as I did at home. So maybe being thankful isn't all about keeping what we already have. Maybe it's about allowing God to work in opportunities that we may not otherwise have recognized. Maybe being thankful is more about God than it is about us.

In other thoughts, boards is over (YAY!) and I now have spare time that seems un-measurable. But I suppose when you compare it to no spare time, anytime seems like a lot. I'm finally starting to get serious about job hunting and resumes and cover letters. Not that that is particularly fun either, but hey, I'm thankful that I'm nearly finished with school!