Having spent most of my life playing with old cars, I’ve attended enough car shows to earn a doctorate in automobilia. Along the way I’ve developed a sophisticated palate for high quality restorations. Whenever I can combine the beauty of the Smoky Mountains with a high quality car event like “The Shades of the Past” annual event in Pigeon Forge… well, no offense to West Virginia, but I find it to be almost heaven.
A few weeks ago as I scanned the Pigeon Forge mountainside blanketed in millions of dollars of antique cars, a lowly, 1954 Ford station wagon caught my eye. The closer I looked at the car, the more the incredible detail of its restoration unfolded.
On the open tailgate a photo album gave clues to the little station wagon’s fifty-nine-year journey. The first black and white photo showed a darling little girl smiling winsomely in the embrace of a stooped older woman beside a new Ford wagon. I relived the car’s photo-documented life as I flipped to the last photo of its proud present day owner smiling that same winsome smile. As I glanced from the photo album to the front of the car, I saw her there reading a book and enjoying the bright Tennessee sunshine. “Are you the little girl in the first picture?” I asked. She smiled and replied, “Yes! Yes, I am. My name’s Brenda.”
Turns out the older woman in the picture was Brenda’s grandmother, the first owner of the brand new car. Brenda said her grandma believed the car spoke to her that day and she just couldn’t resist it. I understood! Brenda reminisced aloud about weekend camping trips with her grandparents in the wagon. “I’ve slept in the back seat of that car more times than I could possible remember!”
Brenda’s father inherited the station wagon at her grandmother’s passing and immediately announced he was going to trade it for a pickup truck, which drew a southern tongue lashing from Brenda. She laughed as she recounted, “I tole him ‘No, yer not…that caur is famuly!’ Dad stared at me for a moment and then dropped the keys into my hands. It’s been mine ever-since!” She drove it to high school and on to college. As a newlywed, it was her daily-driver… until one day, like an old horse, it just laid down.
Her husband pushed it into an old shed out back. Decades passed and rust took its toll. It sank into the dirt, weeds grew up around it and life’s stuff got piled on top of it. When Brenda and her husband decided to replace the old shed, something had to be done. He declared it too far gone and drug it out for the junk man, and again Brenda intervened declaring, “You ain’t gonna sell ‘at caur…its famuly!”
Recognizing the determination in her voice, her husband called his car buddies over to assess its future. To a man, the committee agreed it was too far gone, a waste of time, and should be junked. And for the third time, Brenda intervened for the car by declaring it was family.
Brenda’s husband, sitting silently beside her as she unfolded her story, shook his head at this point and mumbled, “Hit was a de-zasster!” She smiled and punched him on the shoulder. “We didn’t speak fer days, then one day as we was passing in the hallway, he said, ‘It’ll probably take every dime we have, but I’m gonna restore the wagon.’”
After nine years of late nights and endless hobby hours, the green and crème Ford station wagon stood tall. It couldn’t have looked any better the day it rolled out of Dearborn in 1954.
I was moved by Brenda’s faithfulness to her grandmother’s car. I got the sense that it was much more than an automobile. It really was family!
Our heavenly Father has displayed that same tenacity toward us. He sees each of us as family, and deeply desires to restore our relationship with Him. When life writes us off as worthless—not worth the time or trouble—then Jesus, just like Brenda, intervenes with a shout, “You can’t do that, they’re family!”
“I give you all the credit, God—you got me out of that mess, you didn’t let my foes gloat. God, my God, I yelled for help and you put me together. God, you pulled me out of the grave, gave me another chance at life when I was down-and- out.”
Psalm 30:1-3 The Message
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.