The Porch Light copyright by Revka (2006-2010). All rights reserved.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Every Need Supplied

images courtesy of fotosearch.com

Thanks for all of your concern for Mr. Incredible. We appreciate your prayers for him and are happy to report that after just two visits, he has noticed a significant decrease in pain. (I'd also like to thank Dana for making me realize that I had not made clear that we did see the X-rays for ourselves. The spinal damage was very clear, even to our untrained eyes.) I'm not really posting about Mr. Incredible's plight this time, though. I'd like to share the story I made reference to in that post - the one about our recent acquisition of a Suburban.

Several months ago, I posted about Mr. Incredible's need for a different truck. After discussing our situation, he decided that we would be better off getting another family vehicle. That way, if our minivan ever broke down, we wouldn't be stranded. He also decided he wanted an SUV, not another minivan. (It's a guy thing. *laugh*)

We knew from the start that buying a new SUV would not even be an option. The prices for those things are simply ridiculous; some even cost more than the first house we bought! Around the end of February, we started visiting dealerships to determine what particular SUV/s would fit out needs and also to find out what year and mileage we could expect from a vehicle priced in our budget.

...fast forward to March... After rather extensive research, we determined that we needed either a GMC Yukon XL or a Chevy Suburban (the same vehicle for all intents and purposes). We also determined that both of those vehicles would cost about $20k with 70,000 miles. Since an honest look at our finances told us that we could not afford to take on that much additional debt, we decided that we would just have to wait until next year to purchase another vehicle. We were perfectly content with that decision.

The last week of April, I received a phone call from a lady in our church saying that she and her husband were trying to sell their Suburban and wanting to know if we would be interested. I explained that we had actually determined that we did need a Suburban but had also decided that we needed to wait until next year to purchase one.

Not wanting to seem rude or dismissive, I asked her what year their SUV was, how many miles it had, and how much they wanted for it. When she said that it was a 2003, I mentally dismissed it as any kind of possibility. After all, the vehicles we had seen were a year or two newer and already had 70,000 miles on them - the highest we wanted to go. So when L. went on to say that the vehicle only had 33,000 miles on it, my jaw dropped, and my ears perked up in a hurry! When she told me what they wanted for the Suburban, I about fainted because it was half the price of the used vehicles we had looked at that had twice the miles on them! I asked what color it was, knowing Mr. Incredible did not want another black or white vehicle. It was blue. (see a picture of a 2004 blue Suburban)

I told her that I thought we would be interested but that I needed to talk to Mr. Incredible first. We discussed it and both agreed that this offer appeared to be Divinely ordered - we were content waiting until next year to purchase a vehicle, they approached us, the vehicle had half the miles for half the price of the ones we had considered, and we could actually afford the asking price. Mr. Incredible gave me the okay to contact banks regarding financing options.

To shorten this story a wee bit, two days later, our loan had gone through, and five days after that we had the vehicle in our possession. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, we firmly believe that this opportunity was from the Lord. He knew better than we did what we needed when. And isn't that always the case?

"What about gas prices?" you may wonder, and with good reason. The Suburban is a large-tanked gas-guzzler (I just filled up *my wallet says ouch!* and figured we got 18 mpg from the last tank of gas), but we never intended for this to be our primary vehicle. We intend to use it only occasionally and mostly as a back-up in case something should happen to one of our other vehicles. Of course, if we are blessed enough to have a fifth child, we will probably have to use this as our primary vehicle - simply because it will be the only one big enough to accommodate all the car seats!

What lies ahead? We do not know. We have joked that if gas prices keep rising, we may need to revert to the "good ol' days" and purchase a horse and buggy. (I wonder if there would be much savings once we calculated the cost of all the horse supplies we would need.) All we know right now is that the Lord has once again done "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." (Ephesians 3:20 KJV) We praise Him for today's provision and trust Him for tomorrow's unknowns.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are surely in the good Lord's possession! Your friend at church must drive like I do. I call my car the KROGER CAR. It is six years old and only has 27,000 miles on it.

Look at it this way: Take the amount of money you thought you were going to have to pay and subtract the price of the blue Suburban. THAT ammount is what you can spend on GAS without feeling guilty!!!

EASY MATH brought to you by DANA.

Anonymous said...

Yes, they used the vehicle to go to church and doctor's appointments.

Great math. Thanks! :)

Michelle said...

Maybe there is something in God's plan for the gas prices! One can only hope. I know I am making a big dent just gassing up my minivan!