Um... I'm still alive...

Hi, y'all.

It looks like... *ahem* I have a wee bit of explaining to do--namely, explaining about my recent, prolonged absence.

I was not, I swear, avoiding all you wonderful people. Really, I wasn't. The fact of the matter is that, somehow, I got mistaken for some CIA rogue black op and consequently had to go to Washington, DC for a week and a half to clear up this identity snafu. Never trust CIA agents... they told me they'd send me home afterward and I ended up in Panama. They gave me some nonsense about the airlines messing up my ticket, which I of course didn't believe, and finally sent me home for real... although I think they're probably monitoring my posts now. Heck, they probably have a permanent lock on my IP address, no matter how many times I change it.

Don't look at me like that. Who says I can't be mistaken for a rogue...

Okay, fine. I'll admit it... that's not really what happened.

What really happened is my family decided to go "back east" and visit extended family on my mom's side. Go = drive... which means I was sitting in a motorhome for three days straight one way.

At least, that was the plan.

In reality, something happened to the fuel filter when we were in The Middle of Nowhere, SD... on a Saturday evening. No parts shops were open in the vicinity until Monday, so we attempted to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we'd probably be sitting at a nice, but overcrowded, campground until then.

Fortunately, we found an open parts shop about 60 miles away on Sunday, so we limped over to there and replaced the fuel filter. Then we went on our merry way.

We visited with friends and family (sorry, sethbeastalan, I'm cutting your part of the trip), had a good time, and then went uneventfully home.

Or so we thought.

We got a flat tire... this time, fortunately, not in the middle of nowhere, so we weren't stuck. But if we hadn't gotten a flat tire, we wouldn't have arrived at an Indiana truck stop at a certain time...

Okay, well, we were sitting at the gas pump, finishing up and all that. This Super-Slurry semi had been getting diesel at a different pump, and it just started rolling out slowly. I was looking out the motorhome window at the time and noticed that the truck didn't appear to have a driver. My mom, who was standing outside, noticed the same thing and said, "Does that truck have a driver? I don't know if it does..."

We stared at it for a little bit as it picked up speed. And it soon became apparent that the truck did not, in fact, have a driver. So my mom started yelling, "IT DOESN'T HAVE A DRIVER! IT DOESN'T HAVE A DRIVER!"

The truck, oblivious to the shouts of the surrounding people, trundled out onto the expressway, which was at that moment fairly busy. I was glued to the window, and I couldn't stop saying "Oh God, oh God, oh God." (Note: I was not swearing... I just couldn't really think of anything coherent to say to God at the moment.)

Mercifully--miraculously--no one crashed into the truck, even though it stopped across the eastbound lanes. Everyone saw it coming in time and either stopped or floored it and got by. The truck driver was somehow AWOL until the truck came to a stop, at which point the driver emerged from the Kwik-Mart (or whatever it was) with a Mountain Dew and went after his recalcitrant vehicle.

So there you go. A picture of God's mercy in action.

Oh yeah... after that we got home just fine.

So that, in a rambling coconut-shell, is where I have been for the past few weeks. Sorry it was so long...

(I'll try to do a meaningful post soon... I have an idea I've been kicking around, so I should be able to write something serious in the fairly near future.)

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Rom. 11:33
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!