When the stars align.

*Alternative title for this post: Thank you, Jesus.

Sometime this summer, Jeremy's car decided to stop starting. This was frustrating, though not entirely impossible for our life, as we live close enough to Jeremy's work for him to bike there if necessary. So, we put off doing anything about the car trying to make a good decision about whether to repair it or not. It's served us well for the couple years Jeremy's owned it, and as he purchased it for less than a thousand dollars, you'll understand when I say, the car was a bit rough (our awesome brother-in-law, Luke sold him the car and it was huge blessing!). Since then Jeremy's dashboard was torn up when a kid broke into his car and stole the CD player. So, the car was not long for this world.

This week we finally got the car towed in to the mechanics to get an estimate for repairs. We'd set a price limit and the estimate came back over a $100 higher than our limit. And so we had the back and forth conversation of what to do; should we donate it, sign it over to the mechanics, or talk to my mechanic brother. We decided to talk with my brother to see if it was a possibility for him to purchase parts and drive up here to fix it some weekend. And then we could buy ourselves some time to look for a replacement vehicle, but still have functioning vehicles. That's where we landed sometime on Wednesday.

This morning Jeremy and I set out to the mechanic's planning to call AAA when we got there and have the car towed back to our apartment and await Elliot's repairs some time in August. Although I asked Jeremy on the way there if we were crazy to be doing this, and he said "probably", we thought this was best for us.

Instead, we bought a car.

Our mechanic came to us recommended by several people and we've been pleased with his work; he's always been honest with us. Not only do they repair cars, they also sell cars there, but every time I've glanced through their cars, nothing we'd want to purchase has been in our price range. As we've known our future would be including the purchase of another car, sooner than later, we've spent some time saving money as well as talking about price range and kinds of cars we wanted (with Hondas and Toyotas at the top of the list).

Sitting on the lot today was a '98 Toyota Avalon with just over 135k miles on it, in pristine condition. Just out of our discussed price range, we decided to negotiate. Jeremy got it into our price range and threw in his old Honda to keep the price lower (plus it got it off our hands). They agreed, let us test drive it, then gave us $20 to put gas in the car and drive it home to come back later with a check and the Honda title. And so, as of 4:30 today, we own a new-to-us car; a very unexpected, but huge answer to prayers and many potential frustrations.

I was supposed to be at work today. But, one of my co-workers had surgery and isn't recovering as fast as anticipated and so I switched my schedule to work for her tomorrow. Ordinarily, we wouldn't have had this day and this time together to be making such decisions.

God worked so many details together perfectly today to provide for us in an area of uncertainty, one in which we'd been praying for guidance for some time. And as I drove home in my Honda (the one that the tailpipe fell off of this week!) with Jeremy somewhere behind me in our new car, I couldn't help but breathe this prayer, "Thank you, Jesus."