Answers in Broken Things
On answered prayers and demolished minivans, pt. one
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matt. 7: 7-8 NIV).
I was reading this verse as I lay in bed last Wednesday night. My eyes were beginning to droop, and the wind was howling outside of my bedroom window. The ice storm the forecast had promised was intensifying. In New England, there is something different about spring storms. In March 2023, our region was buried under several feet of heavy snow. Trees fell, power lines snapped, and the backroads of our small New Hampshire town were all but impassable. We, however, tucked into our little hill on the side of the state highway, were not affected by these things.
This storm was different.
For one, it was much later in the season. It was also coming at a time when the weather would reflect what was happening inside my heart. For though it was only Wednesday, it had not been the easiest week.
The stress started in on Tuesday. The tax meeting with our accountant had not gone as smoothly as we’d wanted, leaving both Briana and I extremely frustrated. Piling onto that, our sturdy minivan, a 2008 Toyota Sienna (lovingly nicknamed “Ivan”), was beginning to make unattractive noises. I was already aware that Ivan was not going to pass state inspection come June, but my mechanic had a plan in place to fix what was wrong. These new nosies, however, were cause for concern.
My mechanic confirmed my primary theory of an exhaust leak, but because the check engine light was on, my mechanic ran a diagnostic scan with his computer. The machine informed us that one of the Ivan’s pistons in the engine was misfiring, causing his 6-cylinder engine to become a 5-cylinder, and placing a lot of undue pressure on the catalytic converter. The look in my mechanic's eye told me this was neither going to be cheap or easy to fix. Still, as Ivan was our only car, the work needed to be done. We scheduled an appointment for the following Tuesday.
As I began to run numbers that stretched our meager emergency fund to its limits, a writhing worm began to grow inside of my chest. I couldn’t wait for men’s group that evening.
My friend, John, had begun the meetings as a way for the men in our church to connect socially, talk God, and pray for one another. As I told the group what was going on and as we prayed over the situation, I began to feel that things were going to be alright.
This peaceful feeling was quickly dashed when I awoke Wednesday morning. A headache had set in behind my left eye, causing sinus pressure that made my head feel like it was going to explode. To make matters worse, the small writhing worm from the day before had grown to a serpent.
I tired to remember the feeling of the previous night. We had prayed for clear signs as to whether or not I was on the right path with my writing. Wednesday afternoon, I got emails from two of my editors offering me more stories. This was not enough to assuage the fully grown serpent now nesting comfortably within my chest. That night, as the weather worsened, I turned to the Word and opened Matthew.
When I reached “Ask, Seek, Knock”, I began to think. ‘Had I not asked? Had not the Lord answered? He had. So what was I to be afraid of going forward?’
I set my Bible down and had fleeting thought: ‘You know, if a tree were to fall on the van tonight, it might not be such a bad thing.’ As I drifted off into sleep, I heard the sound of ice falling off of my roof in a muffled crash. I could deal with it in the morning.
My sleep was uneasy. Between dreams of mangled shapes and the howling wind, neither I, or Briana, got much rest. We both lay awake as the muddled morning light began to break in through our windows. Suddenly, the house went quiet, only to fire back up a minute later. Realizing that we could potentially lose power, Briana groggily made her way to the kitchen to prepare a batch of hard boiled eggs. I remained behind in bed. The serpent, which I determined to be the shape from my dream, was dead.
At 6:30 my three-year-old, Graeme, opened his door to come downstairs. He does this every day like clockwork. As he shuffled his way down, he suddenly stopped. There was a moment's silence.
“Oh … DEAR!” he said. “Mom! Dad! Come look at Ivan!”
I jumped out of bed. Graeme was in the front hallway, staring out of the window that looks over our driveway.
“Look,” he said, pointing out the window. This is what he saw:
Ivan was buried beneath a tangled mess of tree limbs. An enormous section of our ancient sugar maple had fallen, bringing down, but not breaking, our main power line, caving in Ivan’s roof, and lifting some of his tires off the ground. Briana gasped when she joined us. My stepdaughter, Natalie, hearing Graeme’s exclamations, rushed downstairs. Everyone was flabbergasted. None more so than me.
It dawned on me that the noise I thought was falling ice was actually the tree coming down on Ivan. As I gazed out the window, I looked to see if any of the trees sizable branches had hit the house. None had, save for a small arm that rested gently against the porch. The rest of the fallen section lay in our walkway, mere centimeters from the porch. Ivan had borne the brunt of the tree, and saved our house as a result.
As I stared at the mess in my yard, I remembered what I had thought only a few hours previous: ‘
You know, if a tree were to fall on the van tonight, it might not be such a bad thing.’
I remembered the verse I’d read:
“Ask and it will be given to you.”
I took a deep breath.
‘Okay, Father. You’ve made your point. Now what?’