I mentioned in a previous post that my daughter had been borrowing my car. Short story, long: She wrecked hers by rear-ending another vehicle after they made an abrupt stop. She was able to drive away, thankfully. She spent the evening at the hospital where she was checked out and diagnosed with a concussion. It could have been worse, but again thankfully it was not. The next day she informed her insurance company and waited for them to access the damages. After a week went by and still no visit from the insurance adjuster, she called them again. She was told they were waiting on a police report. We could not understand why that mattered, but that was their story and they were sticking to it! Into the second week and still with no sign of an insurance adjuster, she took her car to a body shop to let them go ahead and order the necessary parts. The man who owns the body shop told her that it looked ok for her to drive, but to not make any long trips in it. This was on a Friday afternoon. That same night, while she and a friend were on their way to a movie, smoke started boiling out from underneath the hood. She was driving in bumper to bumper traffic, but was able to pull over into a parking lot. By this time her car was pretty much blazing! She and her friend got out and were ok. Thankfully she was close to a fire station and their response was quick. This time the insurance company did not delay accessing the car's damage. Neither did she have to wait long for their report to declare it totaled.
After the shock wore off, my daughter became very concerned about what she was going to do with no vehicle, no money for a down payment to purchase another one, and the probability of still owing a large sum on the "charred" one after the insurance company settled. Finding out she had Gap coverage was a surprise to her, a welcomed surprise. (Gap insurance covers the difference between what the car is worth and what you owe on the car.)
We played "musical cars" for a little while. My husband got a company car to drive, I drove his truck, and she drove my car. She needed a couple of months to save for a down payment and some time to try to find another one.
After a couple of weeks and after she looked and looked at cars and agonized and agonized over the price tags, she made what I considered to be a very "big girl" decision.
She realized how great it felt to not have a car note and how great it would be to not have one when she returns to school in August. Prior to her accident, she had been looking at three more years of payments, and now this incident had changed all of this.
In the words of the late Paul Harvey: "And now for the rest of the story".
My husband and I had already planned on purchasing a new or at least newer vehicle towards the end of this year. So, we talked about the possibility of selling the old one to our daughter and going ahead with our plans to buy another one. But, not only were we not financially ready to do this, we also had some concerns about selling her our vehicle because of its age. We barely mentioned this to her, but never pushed the idea on her. As a matter of fact, we were in the process of helping her look for one for herself. We had also made the joint decision to not inflict her with our advice or ideas.
This was why I was taken back the night she called to inform me that she wanted to buy our car. She told me it felt "right" and she had peace about it. She knew she could save up and pay us for it in one lump sum and after having driven it for a few weeks, she realized it had all the features she was looking for in a vehicle. The car she owned had been void of any "extras". I told her over the phone that I would have to talk to her dad about it first because we would have to have some work done on it for her if this was what she wanted to do.
- Unbeknown to me at the time, my husband had called a friend of his who is a prayer warrior and asked him to pray about our car situations, for my daughters, as well as, ours. I am not sure how many days this took place before the following telephone conversation.
- My husband's brother mentioned to him that his daughter and son-in-law were on their way out of town to purchase a new vehicle. At the end of the conversation, my husband hung up and immediately called the son-in-law.
- He asked him what they were going to do with their old vehicle. The answer was to trade it in. He asked if we could possibly look at it. So, they got an estimate for a trade it while they were there, but picked up their new one and drove the old one back home for us to look at.
-We picked it up on Sunday, called him Monday morning to find out how much he wanted for it. He asked us for the pay-off.
- By Monday night we owned a 2005 Chevrolet Tahoe and owed less than $6,000.00 on it. I am not usually so open about how much we pay for things, but this was nothing short of an answer to prayer and I just had to share it.
-The son-in-law was happy and willing to do this for us. And we were so thrilled to watch God work all of this out!
-I will thankfully drive this car for the next couple of years while we are up to our eyeballs in college costs for our son.
AND I am not finished yet. Or at least, God was not finished yet.
I got a phone call from my husband on Wednesday from his work. He informed me of an incentive bonus he had just been given at work. He asked me if I had any ideas on how to spend it. (Was that a dumb question or what?) It only took me a fraction of a second to tell him what spilled out of my heart. He agreed wholeheartedly. I could not get her phone number punched in fast enough. I was able to inform my daughter that she now owned her car, our old car - free and clear! She owed us nothing.
My heart overflows.
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