It was in the parking lot.
Our car was exactly where we left it mid-morning, but trying to find the jalopy after dark in the heavy, blowing snow that had been coming down for several hours just about gave us a heart attack, literally.
Getting lost has always been one of our greatest fears, and we have many times not known exactly where we were. However, eventually, we’ve always found our way back.
This time, others were hustling around us successfully finding and driving their vehicles away. After passing it three times, we found our car, but we didn’t even attempt to go.
Fortunately, a motel was just a block away, and we found refuge in its protection and warmth. After a hearty breakfast the following morning, our trusty transportation was still snow-covered where we’d finally located it a dozen hours before. Not too much effort was needed to clear the foot of snow covering the windshield, and it started on the first crank.
Paths were barely visible on the roadways, and our worries were no worse than other drivers, many of whom seemed to be in quite serious predicaments. Actually, we made it to work a little late, but ahead of several others.
Some of this is a repeat performance, but after not being able to find our car, we recall the first of such experiences and a number of those that have followed. Parking lots at the state fair have literally thousands of cars, and we couldn’t find ours in 1968. After walking back and forth for hours and hours, yep, it was still in the same spot.
Since that time, we always try to remember details of where we park, so we won’t have trouble finding it. Still, without fail, our heart always seems to skip a beat whenever we walk out of a store into a large car-filled lot, until we see the one we know best. Airport parking is another of our fears, and just last summer, we lost our car in one at Kansas City, even though we had written down the exact location numbers in our billfold.
Now, this doesn’t even take into consideration the number of times we’ve been lost when driving. The worst had to be in Boston, Massachusetts, when we went over the same toll bridge five times before finally figuring out which exit we should take to get to the horse show we were supposed to be at an hour’s drive down the highway.
Whenever possible we let somebody else drive and won’t even hold the map for them, unless they demand we do so. Knowing our inability to know where we are, our family got us one of these fancy gadgets to put on the dash, and it will tell us how to get where we are supposed to be going. Now, we have to figure out how it works, and for us that’s obviously going to be tough.
Every time we get lost we recall Luke 15:31: “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours, but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive. He was lost, and he’s found.'”
+++ALLELUIA+++