Two Fish, Five Loaves

We had some excitement last weekend...

My husband left Thursday evening for a weekend fishing trip at a state park located 2-3 hours south of our home... Nothing special... he goes camping about once a month when it's nice out so this was nothing out of the ordinary for him....

Friday night about 11 pm I get a collect call from him... his cell didn't get service where he was.... he had gotten into it with the group of people he was with and had grabbed his stuff and walked off the camp site and headed to the main lodge... he needed a ride...

For those of you who don't know my husband, he can really lose his temper when provoked... I guess this was a different group of people that he knew but had never camped with before... and he got into it with one of the guys and was greatly out numbered... he figured it was better for him to grab his stuff and go than to hit the guy and then either get mauled by the rest of the group or tossed in jail...

So, he gave me some rough directions and I headed out about 11:30 pm... I was doing okay on gas and figured I would try to stop once a little over half-way down there to use the restroom and get gas so we could drive straight thru on the way back.... little did I know that the route I was taking had nothing after the last town 45 min from our house...

There were plenty of gas stations along the route but being so rural and the middle of the night, they were all closed. When my husband called to give me more specific directions, he told me to stop and try a pump anyway... of course it didn't work...

By the time I got to him, I had about 1/8 tank of gas. I told him I thought we should head to the next town and hope for an open pump but he refused and we headed back toward home... me knowing there was no hope for gas for at least 50 miles or more...

Now, being a guy, my husband set out to prove me wrong. We stopped at one station and although it accepted his card, the pumps were off so all we could get was what was left in the line... and it only dripped it's way into my tank, so empty at this point that we could hear it as the drops echoed in the tank...

Lather, rinse, repeat...

We did this 3-4 more times along the route for a grand total of just under 1/2 gallon... he kept asking how far to the next town by my map and I kept praying that he would agree to just sleep at the next pump until it opened in a few hours... I also prayed that the fumes would get us where we needed to go so he wouldn't have to walk to the next town...

We finally made it to a larger town that actually had a Walmart with gas pumps... which of course were off, but the store was open so I could use the restroom and ask what time the pumps opened... the lady working there told us about the one 24 hour pump in town which happened to be less than 2 miles away... so if we did die, my husband could walk back to the Walmart to buy a gas can then to the pump and back to the car with ease if need be...

We made it to the station, which was, of course, dark and deserted, with the exception of the one brightly lit pump...

My husband put his card in...

"Please see attendant" flashed across the screen... (of course... he just made 3-4 purchases for about 25-50 cents each and the card was flagged...)

I laughed so hard tears were rolling down my face... he was trying not to lose his temper while digging in his bag for another card... which he found and successfully used to fill up my starving tank.

Now this whole trip I prayed... that I stay awake... that I find him without too much trouble... that the gas in tank got us to where we needed to be... that no one had to walk anywhere... that we make it home safe. And as I began to realize that running out of gas was a very real possibility, the Bible story about a small amount of food feeding a large amount of people with more left over than they started with kept running through my mind... God would make my car go farther than it should on what was left in the tank... I knew it... and I prayed for it... for 4 hours I prayed for it....

That night in the rural midwest, God made a car that only gets 27-29 mpg get close to 35 mpg... the proof was in the distance of the trip divided by the amount of gas we put in at the pumps...

We pulled safely into our driveway at 5:30 am Saturday morning.

Never think that God doesn't answer ALL prayers... sometimes His answer is "no" or "not yet" but He does answer them ALL...

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35 weeks today... 5 weeks to go... OB says the baby is doing fabulously... BP meds increased to twice a day but the dose is still so small that I am not too concerned...