There has been a Ford Aspire for sale along Rt. 28 for the last couple of weeks. I joked with Diane that I wanted to buy it. I used to own one much like the one that is for sale. It was my favorite car. It was a 5 speed manual transmission that got 40 miles to the gallon. It was several years old and only $900 when I got it. It had about 70,000 miles on it when I got it and I had it until it had about 200,000 miles and blew a cylinder. Then I sold it to someone for $300. I did the math once and figured out how much money it saved me in gas over the life of the car compared to a car that would have averaged 20 miles a gallon. It was thousands of dollars. Obviously, it would make no sense for me to buy that car sitting along the road today. My “good gas vehicle” right now is a hand me down from Diane – a 2009 Hyundai Accent that gets just over 30 miles to the gallon. But that old Aspire brings back the warm fuzzies for me.
It is not unlike how the enemy taunts us with old memories as a way to prevent us from the future that God has for us as His new creation. Sometimes I wonder what kind of church we would have at our home church in Sistersville if so many of us had not left to become pastors. And not only did Sistersville lose the one called to pastor, but the spouses. Did we couples who were called do the right thing? Absolutely. The people who have been sent out by Sistersville First United Methodist Church were/are called. Is God doing amazing things in and through us? I humbly say yes, He is. But I still wonder. The Holy Spirit worked mightily in that season. I believe that the Holy Spirit is getting ready to do a new and mighty work in and through our home church again in this new season with their new pastor, Andrew Tennant, and his wife Julie.
I thank God for those good memories, and for that milepost on mine and Diane’s journey. But I also am thankful that He has allowed us to move on in this walk with Him, being faithful to Diane and me and giving us the grace to trust Him more.
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oh my this is funny, cause as i was looking for a car for shirley i came across a really nice 2003 subaru outback wagon that i thought would be perfect until i looked at it and it had 242k miles on it, well i had to drive past it all week 2x a day to work, i had a 1986 subaru wagon that carried myself, 3 kids and grandma 100k to football, soccer, and baseball games all over pa, so of course i REALLY liked that nice subaru outback with 242k miles on it, soooo come friday morning i stopped on my way to work and bought it! oh well we shall see how it works out……
If I come home with a 1996 Ford Aspire Diane will kill me.
well maybe it will be gone soon….