car education course completed

Yesterday I received notice that my ticket fine has been dismissed. And so completes my crazy course in car education.

let us run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1)

Update on the car troubles: I passed emissions! I will put in a quick post when I hear word about whether or not I have to pay the $20 parking ticket.

At the beginning of the year, I made a goal to work on three characteristics throughout the year, four months at a time. I haven't decided on the other two yet, but patience was the first one I chose. Since making that a goal, I have found that patience is an essential element in every aspect of life! And I have been amazed at how I have had my patience challenged through various little (and bigger) life situations. And so this post is dedicated to a few observations I've had about patience:

• Patience requires a widened perspective. If we are caught up in the moment, we don't see the outside influences and potential vision that would help us be patient in the moment. Case in point: I may get very involved and anxious about one grade for a class, but in the scheme of things, I can get a job just fine without an A.


• Patience is a time test. Almost always, patience requires waiting. The first moments are most difficult, perhaps, but as you learn to live with that waiting period and be patient, you learn more patience. It's like that quote from C.S. Lewis: "You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later." I had a tire fixed in December, and I had to wait two hours! At first, I was very put out, but as I settled into the experience (and read a very interesting magazine on country home decorating), I increased my tolerance and patience.


• Much of patience deals with attitude. We have a choice about how we want to react in every situation we confront. We can choose to act in a myriad of ways! But I have found that the reaction of patience is the one that lends itself to the best long-term results.


• Patience does not mean weakness. It is a strength. It is evidence of substantial character development. It does not mean passivity, either. You can be passionately patient. In fact, the two can dove-tail together beautifully. Take, for example, my passion with helping people out of poverty. If I couple that with patience, I will be in the trenches for the long run, searching for solutions. I won't give up in just a little while, but will wait it out and continue searching.


• To have that kind of patience I just described, you must have faith in the labor you are pursuing. If you don't believe or hope that it is good and worthy, then you can't have the patience to continue going. This is a very explicit gospel parallel.

And finally, just so I can post a picture, I will post a picture of a 1000-piece puzzle Matt and I made last week. That required a fair amount of patience to fit everything together.

the imperfect science of cars

The last week has been one of learning the imperfect science of CARS. I have a 1996 Toyota Camry which has this really great feature for an older car: the lights automatically turn off when you turn off the car and open the car door. Since the car is kind of a light tan color, I like to leave my lights on so other cars will notice I am not camouflaged into the background and plow right through me. Last week, however, this great feature of the lights automatically turning off FAILED. And I didn't even know because it was during the daytime! The result? I came out to a car that wouldn't make so much as a whir when I turned the key in the ignition. (I did NOT know at this point that the cause was the automatic light feature.) That night was an adventure in and of itself: my friend's jumper cables weren't "manly" enough to give the battery the juice it needed, so my boyfriend generously bought a pair of VERY manly jumper cables that did the trick. I was thrilled when my car worked the next night. I didn't realize the light-turning-off feature was the culprit until that next night when my lights didn't turn off--and I realized it because it was dark outside.

So began the vow to ALWAYS manually turn off my lights. That vow lasted a total of five days. Sunday I went to church, and when I came out, the battery was dead. Even the very manly jumper cables wouldn't get the battery to even TRY to turn over. But here was the complication: I was parked at BYU, in the Administrator parking lot, and I couldn't move my car. I left a note that explained I would try to take care of the problem on Monday morning.

Well, Monday morning had its own adventure! We (when I say we, I am referring to my very patient and helpful boyfriend and me) took out the old battery, took it to Checker to be checked, and left it there for an hour so the test could be complete. The battery wouldn't take the charge and was promptly declared dead. I called Autozone, where I had bought the battery a year ago, and they told me I could bring it in and get a new one at NO COST because the battery was under warranty. So, we picked up the dead battery at Checker and headed to Autozone. After some imcommunicable grunts and eye contact, we left the store 15 minutes later with a new battery. At no charge. EVEN THOUGH they knew I was the culprit for having left my lights on and killing the old one. (Bless Autozone.) But my boyfriend had a work meeting then and I had class, so we resolved to meet up in an hour and a half to install the new battery in my car. Well, his work meeting went longer than planned, and then I had a string of meetings I needed to take care of that didn't end until 2:30, at which time we convened at my car to perform the installation. I was greeted by a bright green parking ticket on my windshield. (In retrospect, I can see that I looked shady because I had a G-lot sticker in my window, so it looked like I probably couldn't find a spot in the student lot and just parked in the A lot. The benefit I would have, if this really were the case, is that a police officer can't determine if the battery is dead or even in the car because it's INSIDE the hood. Hmmmm.) Anyway, we successfully replaced the battery...but I had a class to run to. So, I left the parking ticket on my window and left my car parked where it was.

But the adventure doesn't end...today I took my car (a week late) to be checked for safety and emissions. The safety part checked out, but the emissions FAILED. Because of my new battery!!! I now have to start it cold, got at least 50 mph for a good half an hour, and then bring the car back in within 15 days. And so I an enjoying the ever-widening repercussions of leaving my lights on.

APPLICATION: I thought of two main things from this on-going adventure: one, we get entrenched in habit and become dependent on certain behaviors; and two, the influence of a moment of stupidity has the potential to be VERY far-reaching. I had been trained to not worry about turning off my lights, and even after I figured out that was the problem, a weak moment led me to fall right back into habit. Do we do that when we think about poverty? Do we become entrenched in the way we think about our approach to helping people so that we can't get away from it without feeling uncomfortable?

The second thought is that we can't plan on life happening ideally. In fact, we all have various moments of stupidity--almost daily. As such, we need to be prepared to deal with them. Maybe I don't need to prepare myself for all of this stuff with a battery, but my mental attitude needs to be such to handle the situation as it comes. I think that general principle of patience is extremely applicable here--and in so many other situations in life. Our complex lives are continually being tweaked to be more efficient and enjoyable, but those darn moments of stupidity can throw off the entire assembly line. And we need to be prepared for that. As I look at ways to approach poverty, I must be prepared for the clockwork implementation to be bogged down and have patience in working out the details.

I will be happy to report on how my appeal to the ticket goes AND on if I pass emissions. Life is just one great and grand adventure!