(Did you know I really LOVE Queen?)
Soo yeah, another week is done. Thank goodness. It was long and stressful. I started out Monday morning crazy tense due to our rather terrifying drive home from Holland on Sunday night. So as promised, here's that story...
Here in Germany there is a gas station called "Esso" which is a super happy place for those of us Americans with military registered vehicles, because we can get an Esso Card. The card allows us to purchase gas at America prices, rather than pay the 1,50 euro per liter. What that means for us is that it's only $40 USD to fill the gas tank, rather than about 60 Euro ($80 USD!)
Quick aside- we just found a little hedgehog out in the backyard! He was sooo cute!
Okay, back to the story. We drove from Amsterdam, down through Belgium, and into Germany. We'd calculated our mileage and knew we would get to Germany with enough gas to get us to an Esso. Which was great- no paying Euro for gas! Money saved.
Money saved. Sanity lost.
Sure enough, we made it to Germany just as our car started telling us we had 55km left in the tank. No big deal, we had seen tons of gas stations off the side of the road all the way through The Netherlands and Belgium... Fun fact about Germany though: once you cross the border, there is literally nothing, including gas stations. It is pitch black as far as you can see, for miles on end. I started to get a little nervous here, as I reached for our GPS to locate the nearest Esso: 34km off our route, which added an hour to our trip home. Not happening.
So I searched for just the nearest fuel station: 3.4 km off the autobahn. We exited, and started making our way through a tiny, winding road that took us much further from the autobahn than we expected. Into a small, sleepy town, in the middle of nowhere, Germany... at 10:30 at night... did I mention I don't speak German?
Did I also mention gas stations close around 8 PM out here? Small town living, it's not my thing.
We got to the gas station, and miraculously there was a machine to take cards (truly a rarity, all our gas stations by home require you to go inside to pay, no card option!) Unfortunately, this machine, for whatever dubious reasons it had, wouldn't accept our cards. At this point, I broke down in tears. It had been at least half an hour that we'd been looking for a gas station, and I really didn't think we would make it back to the autobahn from this tiny village.
Ray gave me a firm hug, and told me we needed to get back in the car and keep going. We drove further into the town to another station: closed, and no card readers. Back through the town, back up the terrifying, winding, dark road, and back onto the autobahn at 11 PM.
I searched for gas stations again and limited options to those that were indicated to be straight ahead on our path. There was a Shell about 20 km ahead, so we set our sights on that. I began praying like I had never prayed before. I was convinced we were going to run out of gas on the autobahn (which you will be ticketed for), in the middle of the night, in complete darkness, with little to no traffic actually passing in either direction.
Me freaking out is an absolute understatement. I can't even begin to describe the anxiety attack that ensued.
Ray kept his cool and asked me to check the GPS again for fuel stations. When I did, I noticed a new station had popped up, it was only 8 km ahead, and said it was straight on our path. We took the exit, despite the fact that we couldn't see the station. Through a quick glimpse between hills I did see the station though, and we decided to risk it. We both knew that if this didn't work, there was no way we'd make it back to the autobahn. At this point, we had already gone about 20km+ over our car's 55km warning. We coasted into the abandoned gas station. Lo and Behold there was a card reader! I jumped out of the car in my socks (that's how distressed I was, I walked outside in socks, despite years of my mother yelling at me and my brothers we'd ruin all our socks that way), and made my way up to the card reader. I blindly followed the German prompts and just hoped I wasn't locking my card out. Somehow I managed to enter the correct pump number, and an amount to charge my card. I gave Ray the signal and he pulled the pump to see if it would deliver.
Thank Heaven, it did. I swear to you I could have collapsed right there in the middle of the gas station from sheer relief. I really can't remember the last time I was stretched so tight. We put 30 Euro worth in, and clambered into the car, rattled and ruffled. We said a humble prayer of thanks to our Father in Heaven for watching over us, and then returned to the autobahn for the final hour of our journey.
Even writing this now, my shoulders and back tense up. Argh, I need a spa day to unwind from that one.
What I learned most from this experience is my greatest fear: darkness. Even when I thought we'd run out of gas on the autobahn, I wasn't afraid of the ticket or oncoming traffic. I even had three back up plans in my mind that I knew would get us out of the situation. But none of them fixed the fact that I would be sitting in the dark for an extended period of time. I was terrified of the absolute darkness we'd be in: no street lights, no lights from surrounding cities, and no lights from our car. Not even the stars were out in cloudy Germany. I am so grateful I did not have to go through that long wait.
As I think about it now, it makes me more humble and grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who provides His light to me everywhere I go. Darkness cannot exist with Him in my life. Though I would have had to endure a small moment of physical darkness, I know He never would have left me and Ray, and I know that through our times of spiritual and emotional darkness, all we have to do is turn to Him to receive some of His Light.
So with that as the start of my week, and some "sink or swim" moments at my new job... yeah, I'd say another trip to Baden-Baden is most certainly in order.
How do you deal with your major stress moments?
How did you see God's Light in your life this week?
I think Godś light shines through in our associations with people a lot of times. Sometimes when I feel like I am going through a ¨dark¨ moment, it almost always helps to just walk outside and chat with the neighbors or call one of my siblings and see how theyŕe doing.
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