There is a saying that goes, “God is good, all the time…all the time, God is good.” The picture above, oddly enough, is evidence of this. Now, looking at this picture, you may be thinking that I have lost my marbles…and I have lost a good portion of them I think…but don’t let that color the evidence.

We loaded about two dozen folks up into a couple of church vans to head to camp at Falls Creek. I could go on and on about Falls Creek but I will save that for another time. Anyway, I hooked up one my pastor’s trailers to haul the week’s worth of luggage, gear and groceries for the four hour drive to Oklahoma. I checked the tires, put a little bit of air in them and we were set.

God started displaying His power as soon as we got on the road. The sky was getting very overcast but He held the rain off until we got settled into the vehicles. As soon as we pulled out, the rain started falling…alot of it. You know, even when it is a light drizzle, it is still alot of water falling out of the sky. I mean, who but God could turn the sprinkler on across that big of an area at one time?

We had to keep the speed down a bit in that rain but the rain slowed to a sprinkle around Dallas. We were into clear, beautiful, sunny weather by the time we hit Denton. We stopped for lunch in Gainesville. My wife and I were in the truck pulling the trailer, so we decided to go on ahead and get the keys to the cabin and have it opened up by the time the others got there.

So, here we are, cooking along at the speed limit (just wanted to throw that out there…it wouldn’t look good to the kids if one of the adult sponsors got a speeding ticket on the way to church camp) when we heard a ‘WHOOMP’ and I felt a vibration. I looked in the rearview mirror to see a chunk of something black fly out the side of the wheel well.

I pull off at the next exit and stop. Wendy is already on the phone to the others telling them how we have a flat on the trailer. When I get out and walk back there to look, I find about 20% of the tread is gone…but it’s still holding air. I’m thinking, “no way!” Remember that there is at least a thousand pounds of stuff in this trailer and it threw the cap at 75 miles per hour. And the little fender is still intact also (when you throw a cap, it is not unusual to have the little fenders on these trailers get torn off by the debris.)

I decide to see how far this thing will take us being as we are only about 12 miles from camp. I ease back onto the interstate and cruise at about 50 miles per hour. We made it into camp without incident!

To quote Billy Mays, “BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!” The blessings from this trashed tire don’t stop there! We unload the trailer and I take it down to where we have to park trailers for the week. On the way to the parking area, I spot the maintenance area for the camp’s buses and think to myself, “I bet they have a four-way lug wrench that would be easier than using the lug wrench from my truck.” I pull in there and ask the guy in the maintenance bay if they have one and he says, “sure. what tire ya changing?” I said, “that trailer tire.” He says, “the four-ways are over there” then grabs the handle of a five ton floor jack…that beats the little 1.5 ton jack that I was planning on using.

Charlie jacked the trailer up and I changed the tires out. We were done in about five minutes. I asked him if he liked sweet onions and he said yes so I told him I would bring him some Noonday Sweet Onions when I come back at the end of the week to get the campers. We try to bring some every year to Gary Fielding, who grew up here in East Texas. He has retired from Falls Creek and he and his wife run the gift shop at Turner falls near Davis, Oklahoma.

Anyway, the lesson for the day is that God’s got everything figured. That was the day before’s lesson too…and the day before that…and the day before that…