Happy birthday, dear Taurus!

{via as it is way too cold to go out and get a picture of our actual car, though it looks just like this one...}

Dear people of the internets, our car is celebrating a milestone birthday this year.  Just like people get shy about their age as time goes by, the car would rather I not share the exact number of years she's been on the road.

Our little Taurus has put us through a lot.

Like that time it died on the highway, smack dab in the middle of our trip with two hours between us and either place we call home, plus a baby in my tummy.¹

Or like that season when we went through sway bars like candy bars (and we love our candy bars around here, mm hmm).

Or that time the brakes were off and the bill made my heart stop.

Or the bills for new tires that made me cringe.

There was a season of great tension between us and the Taurus, but looking back, Professor and I realize that we were to blame.

Cars get sick, just like people.  It wasn't her fault, nor was it ours.  But what was our fault was our attitudes: the sky is falling, our car is a lemon, God is testing us...

And maybe He was.  But after many months, lots of prayer, signing up for AAA, and more prayer, we finally remembered an important truth:

God {much like our little Taurus} is always faithful.  And He will be long after the car is gone.

Funny, we've had a lot fewer car problems since we came to that realization...or maybe we've just felt more prepared to face them.

Either way, happy birthday, dear Taurus.  We thank God for the blessing that you are.

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1 And God brought us a helpful police officer, a generous waitress, and a wonderful father-o'-mine to drive two hours into the night to save us from the expense of a tow. {Plus? The fact that we were 1,000 miles before the expiration of the car's warranty, which saved us oodles of money we didn't have to fix the tranny.} ^↩