I've heard it said that the average father spends 7 minutes of quality time with his children each week. I'm determined to make sure that I don't typify that statistic, so ever since my daughter Tara, the youngest of our three was about 4 years old I have spent 2 to 3 hours each Sunday with one of my children. The three of them alternate Sundays. They call it Quality Time With Dad. The rules are just one child and myself alone, and the child usually gets to choose what we do, within reason.
Today it was Zackary's turn and he chose "Joyriding". Joyriding is where we go way out in the boonies somewhere and they get to drive on the dirt roads or in the arroyas. They have a lot of fun even though it stresses them out somewhat. Top speed is usually somewhere around 10 to 15 miles an hour. They're working their way up slowly but surely. I'm in no hurry.
We left our house at 12:30pm stopped to get gas and then headed out for the middle of nowhere. Zackary had been driving for about 45 minutes when we came to a place that looked kinda of scenic. It was literally 10 to 15 miles away from anything, in the middle of nowhere as you can see from the picture above. I asked Zack to stop so I could get some video. I grabbed the camera and my small tripod and jumped out of the truck. Zack put the truck in park, killed the engine and jumped out also. I started video taping some of the scenery and when I stopped I looked at Zackary as he walked towared me. I could see his eyes were beginning to well up with tears as he said, "Dad I locked the keys in the truck." My first impulse was to encourage Zackary because I could see how upset he was about it. I couldn't imagine how he must have felt right then. I grabbed him, hugged him and told him not to panic. "Let's just think about this for a minute."
We carefully examined the situation and it looked pretty dire. The windows were all up, both doors locked. Nothing for miles around but dirt and sagebrush. I had my pocket knife, my video camera, and a small tripod. That was it. My cell phone? It was in the glove box.
I tried to get one of the rear windows to open by prying it with my knife but to no avail. I could open a little gap so I thought maybe if we could get something in there we could push the latch and at least get that small window open.
I told Zack we needed to look for a fence, thinking that it would be barbed wire, or a piece of metal or something. We headed up the road and about five feet from the truck Zackary yells, "There's a piece of wire!" He grabs it and hands it to me. It was a coat hanger! "You've got to be kidding me!" I think to myself. We're way out in the middle of nowhere and we just so happen to stop five feet from an old rusty coat hanger? And there was nothing else around but a small board with two nails in it.
I had to believe at this point that this whole scenario was orchestrated by God for His own good reasons. We get back to the truck and start trying to figure out how we can get the hanger inside to pull on the lock. Again, Zackary's door was slightly ajar because he didn't slam it hard enough. We were able to get the hanger in the top of the door and work it toward the lock.
We tried and tried but couldn't get the lock to budge. It was smooth and rounded, probably to prevent this exact sort of thing. It had been about an hour by now and it was really starting to get hot. I had a hat but Zackary didn't. I was getting concerned that he was going to get too sunburned so I asked him to get down in the little bit of shade that the truck provided. I kept trying the lock. It was probably about 2:00pm now. The truck was so hot that it was very painful to touch. There was just no way to get the end of the hanger to grab the lock. We tried wrapping the end with a little black tape we had from the tripod. We tried tying a string on the end to try and wrap the lock. We tried pushing the electronic lock and power window buttons but no success.
Zack and I had both been praying to ourselves but now we stopped, held hands and prayed together. We had learned about how God delights to show us mercy in the service this morning. I asked God to be merciful to us and help us open the truck.
We had the idea of trying to get the hanger around the door handle and pull on it, thinking the door would open, unfortuantely the hanger was too short. It was nearing 3:00pm, we were really hot and thirsty, I could see my arms and the back of Zackary's neck really starting to get red. On top of it all the flies swarmed around us relentlessly. We were probably their only source of moisture so they pestered us to no end. Everytime we stopped trying to open the door we had to walk up and down the road just have relief from the flies.
I was really starting to get concerned about us getting too hot and too sunburned, there wasn't a cloud in the sky but there was a slight breeze that kept us a little cool. I was debating whether or not I should just break the small back window. It would cost about $100.00 to replace it, but it might be the wisest thing to do. Still, I couldn't get over the fact that of all the places in this great wide open space out in the middle of nowhere, we would stop 5 feet from a coat hanger. This had to be the providence of God. I felt I needed to persevere. I tried the hanger on the lock again. This time I notice that the hanger slipped slightly down behind the lock. If I could get the coat hangar to get stuck between lock and the door, when I pulled it up it just might come up. I told Zackary about my plan and pulled the coat hangar out so I could break the end off of the hanger and bend it slightly, that way when the hanger went behind the lock, since the lock was plastic, I could twist the hanger slightly and hopefully it would grab.
It worked! The lock popped right up and we were in. Thank you LORD for Your mercy and provision and for the way You orchestrate the circumstances in our lives to bring You glory!
The Lord once again amazed me today and helped me teach Zack some great lessons about His sovereignty, not to mention bonding Zack and I closer together, which after all is the whole goal of "Quality Time With Dad".
