Auto Shop by Jason Stout

When I was about eight years old, my mom married my stepfather, Morris. Morris is one of nine children - eight brothers and one sister. They are a car family. And by that I mean they don't just sort of like cars. They know cars inside and out.

I guess this shouldn't be a surprise. Their father, whose name was Clarence (though everyone called him Skeeter), owned and ran an auto shop. The garage, complete with hydraulic lift, was located on the same property, down a gravel road, as the family home.

One of the things I treasure about Morris' family is how welcomed my brother (3 years older than me) and I were made to feel after my mom and Morris' wedding. We would go to their house for holiday meals and everyone would congregate down at the garage to play cards, shoot the breeze and generally goof off. The kids scooted around on "creepers" - those little wooden pallets with wheels that mechanics lie down on to work under cars. There was even an old-fashioned soda machine that was used as a makeshift cooler - no money was required to grab a cold bottle of Coke out of the machine.

Growing up I was always fascinated by the hydraulic lift and every once in a while Morris would take me down to the garage to watch while he worked on his pickup truck. Mostly routine maintenance. Oil change. Brake pads. But sometimes he would enlist one of his brothers to help do some more complex repair jobs. I think between all of the brothers there wasn't anything they couldn't fix on a car. There were brothers who specialized in body work; engine repair; air conditioning. If it was on a car, they could handle it.

So any small amount of car knowledge I acquired over the years was due to Morris. And, later, when he and my mom bought me my first car - a used 1985 Chevy Cavalier - I was able to handle oil changes, tire rotations and spark plug changes. I almost managed the brake job, but truthfully I was just holding tools for Morris most of the time.

Skeeter and his wife Verna have passed away several years ago now. But my mom and Morris and almost all of Morris' siblings live on the same road - Sand Hill Road - within a few minutes of the family home. And the garage is still a focal point of the family. The brothers and their children still use the hydraulic lift to fix their cars, to the extent they can still be fixed without being "jacked in" to a computer.

I will stop in at the garage every now and again when we're in Indiana. I'm always quickly derided by the brothers for my selection of cars. I drive this old beater of a car. Well, it's not really bad. It's 10 years old - a standard, black, mid-sized sedan. The problem, from their perspective at least, is not the age or the condition of the car. It's that car is not American made.

The problem for me, on the other hand, is that technology has outstripped my knowledge of car repairs. I now know next to nothing about cars and how to fix them if things go wrong. And back in Atlanta, I don't have a hydraulic lift. For these reasons, when I have car problems, I do what most people do: I take my car to what I hope is a reputable repair shop or dealership.

And pray.

A lot.

I recently took my Altima in to a repair shop that had come highly recommended as being fast, accurate and fair in pricing. The mechanic at the shop kept my car for a few hours, called me back and insisted that nothing was wrong. I explained to him (again) that the car was losing power - I described it as "chugging" - and occasionally stalling on me. No, something was definitely wrong. He told me he was sorry but nothing was showing up on the computer so he couldn't help me.

I dejectedly went back to pick the car up. On the way back from the repair shop, though, the car did it again - stalled. I drove right back and this time took the mechanic on a ride with me, where the car continued to chug and stall. With a wisdom unparalleled since Sampson, the mechanic said, "yeah, you've got a problem."

"Well, great," I said. "Can you take a look and see what you think the problem is?"

"Will do, chief," the mechanic replied. "I'll call you in a couple of hours."

Those couple of hours stretched into the next day. When the mechanic finally called me back, the problem he couldn't find had developed into six different major repairs that were absolutely necessary or the car wouldn't be drivable. Total price tag: around $2000.00 - almost more than the car was worth.

I had to make a decision as to whether the car was worth fixing or should just be junked. To make such a decision, I needed information as to what the repairs were for, whether any could be delayed, and just how necessary the repairs were to the car. The mechanic could just as well have been speaking Klingon for as little information as I got out of that conversation. He assured me that once the repairs were done, my Altima should last me several more years and run like a top. And since we didn't really have enough money to buy a new car anyway, I signed off on the repairs.

What started as a little stalling - a problem so small the mechanic couldn't even find it - had blossomed into a major financial headache with repairs to parts that I wasn't even sure existed on almost every major system of the car. But something like this happens every time I bring a car into a shop. Every mechanic I have been to goes beyond fixing my initial complaint and has managed to find several other problems of various shapes and sizes that I didn't know I had - and couldn't even confirm were there if I wanted to.

How frustrating.

You know, some people feel about God the way I feel about my mechanic. They have what they perceive as one major problem in their life. Maybe it's a relationship problem. An addiction. Financial problem. And if they're spiritual people, they want to pray about it. That's one of the wonderful things about God - his comfort in times of trouble.

"God," they'd like to say. "I'm sort of chugging right now. Stalling a little. Seems I've got a problem that's too big for me to handle and I'd like a little help."

"I'm here for you," God would say because God is always there for us. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, I've got a problem with alcohol. Seems I've been drinking two six packs every night and more than that on the weekend. It's interfering with my relationships, but I can't seem to let it go. Can you help?"

"Sure, I can help. It's going to take some work on your part. Maybe some group meetings. Some support from your family and friends. Some recognition by you of the pain you've caused and an attempt to set it right. Are you up to that?"

"OK, I guess so. Sounds like a lot of hard work, but I think I can do it. When can we start?"

"Any time you're ready. But, while you're here I'd like to talk to you about some other things too. Maybe we can talk about what else has been going on in your spiritual life. About the fact that you've stopped going to church. You don't really talk to me much anymore unless you are in really bad shape. You've let your work life suffer a little bit. And your friendships have started fraying. I think maybe we can work on all of this stuff."

"Now hold on," they might say. "I came here for one problem and one problem only. And now you say I have to work on all this other stuff too? It's the old bait and switch. You're just piling on."

But God's not piling on. He wants us to be happy. He yearns for us to have a positive relationship with Him, our family and our friends. And the great thing is He can fix all of that - or show us how to fix it - or help us understand when it's not in His will that they be fixed at all. The solution isn't to back away when we're confronted with what God wants for us.

The solution isn't to just give Him the big problem and rely on ourselves to fix everything else. The solution is to give it all to Him every time and ask His help in fixing everything.

And the great thing is God knows where we are now, how far we've come, and how far we still have to go. He's not going to insist that we do it all right now and pay him $2,000 up front.

Instead, He wants to work with us everyday. Make sure we have the routine maintenance that we need and the big repairs when they crop up. In short, all He wants is all we have. When that's your mechanic, you're in trouble. When it's God, you're on the right track because His "yoke is easy and His burden is light."

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