A matter of trust

As a single woman, I am well accustomed to bringing home the bacon, frying it up in a pan and cleaning the resultant grease spatters off the stove. I'm pretty competent, but still able to recognize that thin line between doing something totally on my own and realizing I need either more learning or outside help.

But dealing with one particular area of everyday life really sends me into a tizzy: car repair.

Don't get me wrong - it's not the mechanics of the thing, so to speak, that bother me. It's the level of expense involved, along with the rather quixotic nature of unscheduled repairs. You simply can't plan for all contingencies. I already knew, thanks to a raving lunatic helpful soul, that a brake light was out. So on Christmas Eve, when I realized a piece of trim was hanging out from under the front bumper of the Civic, I started to fret.

The trim piece is actually one that is never seen - it sits behind the lower edge of the front bumper, not doing too much but acting as miniskirt to shield the tender underside of the car from passing glances. While a bit of the middle of it was loose, it was not causing mechanical problems, not dragging on the ground or in front of a wheel, but it was clearly in need of repair. The days between Christmas and today were spent mostly at home, avoiding driving long distances until I had the cash to take the car in.

Silly me.

The appointment - officially for an oil change and the brake light fix - was obscenely early this morning. The price tag?

- Oil change, covered by my service contract, no extra oil or filters needed - total cost, $0
- Brake light bulb - no charge
- Pinning up the trim piece - no charge
Total out of pocket: $0

The service tech said the trim piece was actually a design defect - while they could replace it, this would most likely happen again. They'd try to reattach it first, and if that worked, it would be fine (at least until I run through the next monster snowfall).

After a week of fretting and fussing over budget adjustments that would need to be made to accommodate car repairs, the work cost me nothing. It's the wasted energy in worry that makes me so mad at myself - I truly know better, that God has in the past and will in the future take care of me, even in what may seem to be silly, everyday things I simply need to (wo)man up and deal with.

Why can't I trust Him up front, rather than after the fact? Why not take the car in right away, rather than worrying and curtailing activities for a week, believing He knows my situation and will take care of it? Maybe it's time to rememorize Jesus' words about worry:

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matt 6:25-33 (ESV)