The Maestro

My family had planned a camping trip in southern Oregon, and I rushed to get everything ready to leave on time. It would be a long drive. However, sometimes plans do not work out—we left late. Late that night, we pulled into a highway rest stop.

Since we were pulling a trailer, we eased into the truck area and parked next to a couple of large semitrucks. As I waited for my family to return to the car, I noticed a young lady, about nineteen years old, walking toward a big truck and then quickly detoured to walk toward me. She timidly asked if my husband knew anything about car electrical.

She explained to him that her brake and blinker lights on the trailer were not working. He walked over to her car, which had a small, loaded trailer attached to the hitch.

The boys had joined me by now, and as my husband was under the car checking the connections to the trailer, I had a chance to talk with her.

She was worried because it was dark and she still needed to get to the next town, an hour up the road, where she had planned to stay the night with family before continuing on. My husband quickly found the problem. The connections from the car to the trailer had been wired backward, and he offered to fix it for her. She asked me, “How does he know?” Smiling, I explained that he was a mechanic and did this for a living. I asked her how long she had been here—and this is where the power of God became evident.

She had been there ten minutes and had wanted to find someone who could help. She had thought it might be a trucker, yet felt afraid to approach a stranger.

She prayed that God would keep her safe and lead her to the right person.

As she headed toward one of the truck drivers, she saw my husband and thought since he was with family, he must be pretty safe. Well God certainly led her to the right person! While he spent the next hour rewiring, I found out that she was on her way to Walla Walla University—the same Adventist college my husband graduated from.

She had started her journey from her home in the foothills above our town. I also discovered we knew her dad, a pastor in our Adventist conference.

I had to laugh. Isn’t God great? He orchestrated things so precisely, including our delays, to fit perfectly into His plan for keeping a young, college-bound girl safe.

Terri Lutz