By the Grace of God

Yesterday, we took our van in to have the radiator fixed. The place we took it to was actually the guy's house. He told me he used to have a shop in the next town over, but has been at this location for the past 12 years.

When I opened the hood for him to inspect it, he couldn't believe what he saw. He had never seen one that bad before.

The radiator on our van has "clips" that are supposed hold the top tank in place. In the case of the radiator in our van, less than half of the clips remained. Yet the tank was still there. The mechanic couldn't understand why it hadn't come apart instead of the fluid just leaking out. I said that not very long ago, we took it on a 200 mile round trip and a few months ago we drove it to San Diego and back. He told me that we were extremely lucky that we hadn't gotten stranded by the side of the road.

He put a brand new one in and even gave us some extra antifreeze just in case it needed a little more. He did show me the old one and let me tell you, it was a sad sight. In addition to the problem with the lack of tabs, all the tubes inside were almost all plugged up. The old guy just shook his head, then he asked if we were going to replace the side window. Ours is currently covered with cardboard, a black trash bag, and a few rolls of duct tape. A few weeks earlier I had been using the weed trimmer in the front yard and a rock shot out and busted the window.

He was asking about the window because he had a van just like ours but a few years older than ours in his front yard that he was parting out. He had already measured both windows and said that the window in his would fit in ours. We would just have to find someone to put it in and he would let us have it for $25. I thought it was a great deal. So I began looking over his van to see if there were any other parts that we could use. The motor on our front passenger window is bad and he said he would sell me the one from his parts van...what luck! I will definitely recommend him to others.

I guess sometimes we get lucky...or should I say...God blesses us once in a while. Hopefully we will be able to find someone to do the work with the windows and save some money.

The luck we had with the radiator not blowing up on us while on one of our trips got me to thinking. God helps us out more than we realize.