I figured today was going to be a challenging day when I got ready for Bible study before services only to start driving and find that my front passenger tire looking as deflated as a four-day old helium balloon. At that point I figured that driving to Vancouver as is would be out of the question, and so my car limped over to the nearest tire store I could find, which happened to be a Les Schwab near the nearest mall. Sadly, my poor front tire could not be repaired, so I replaced the front two tires, did some quick calculations, and drove off to services, having a few people comment to me when I arrived that I had missed the Bible study, as if I had overslept and otherwise not gotten ready early enough to make it. No, instead I was having car troubles on the Sabbath, which is not the way I prefer to spend my day.

As it happens, today was not the first time that I have had car difficulties on the Sabbath. In dealing with such matters as a driver, my mind goes back to a time when I was living in Tampa and driving to St. Petersburg to go to services in the morning where there were more young adults at the time. One Sabbath, when I happened to have a AAA membership (luckily!). For whatever reason, that Sabbath as I was driving southbound on I-275 and had just crossed over the Howard Franklin Bridge, my tire blew out when I was driving about 65 to 70 miles an hour, and I very quickly went over to the right shoulder and called AAA. When I did so, I was asked if I was in a dangerous position–I told them I was on the interstate and where I was located, and I had to spend quite a while having my tires replaced then as well. There are many places I would prefer to spend my Sabbath than dealing with car problems.

Now, as a passenger my experience with car troubles on the Sabbath is far greater. I have done my fair share of pushing cars with transmission problems or water pump problems on the Sabbath, and even walking a mile in a bad part of a town to a convention center on the Holy Day. This is not how I prefer to spend my Sabbath, but when a car decides to behave like an ox, sometimes you have to take it out of the ditch. Of course, I wasn’t the only person who had a challenging Sabbath today, as I happened to see and hear a few people who had fairly challenging Sabbaths themselves for health reasons as well as one friend who overslept and then had a fairly dramatic sabbath as well. Not all types of drama are really bad, but there are some sorts of drama I could do without. I suppose I should save that for another entry though.