So many things have happened since I posted on here; I vow to post up at least once a week from now on. It may be only pictures, but I will post on a regular basis.
Thursday, 25 OCT 12: Nationwide calls and says they need to close the claim on “Sara” (my black Jeep). It has been 4 months since the Jeep was totaled by a guy who was paying more attention to his cell phone than he was his own driving and decided to T-Bone us. I am not happy with the offer, but having talked to my insurance company and legal council, it was the best offer I was going to get. Looking online for Jeeps these past 4 months had gotten me discouraged since I had not found a suitable replacement for the money they were offering. I tell Nationwide I will call them back, and turn to talk to Robin. I turned to Robin and told her that I realized I will never get what the Jeep is worth to me and I was tired of fighting with it. I know that only the Lord will give me more than I deserve, and I am ready to just give the whole situation over to Him. Robin agrees, and we call Nationwide back and tell them we will take the offer, but would like to get some parts off the Jeep if we could. The claims agent said he would have to check and would give us a call back.
I go online once more, as I have done the last 4 months and put the criteria I am looking for in a Jeep (Manual tranny, manual windows, door locks, RUBICON) and hit enter. I didn’t put a price in this time, just to see what was out there. I got over 100 hits that came back, but the price was crazy high, most were close to $20K. So I hit the sort feature and sort from Low to High. The bottom six Jeeps were all right around the price I was able to pay for a Jeep. The first 5 were “okay” jeeps (2000 – 2004), not any were my favorite color, one had Rubicon wheels, but was not a real Rubicon, etc. [singlepic id=209 w=320 h=240 float=right]But the 6th Jeep in the list was a 2007 Rubicon, manual transmission, manual windows, manual locks, and the color was rescue green – The one color that I have ALWAYS wanted on my Jeep, before I even HAD a Jeep. I looked at the price, expecting it to be quite high, since it was so much newer than the other Jeeps, and couldn’t believe it! It was more than I was getting for my black Jeep, but only by a little bit. I showed Robin and told her it was probably a typo or something was major wrong with the Jeep, but I called anyway and asked the dealership to take extra pictures for me. They said the Jeep ran great and was in great shape. Robin smiled and said, “That’s YOUR Jeep!” I was not as confident as her and said, “We’ll see, we still have to come up with the extra money.”
Friday, 26 OCT 12: Nationwide calls back this morning and tells me I can take my brand new tires and custom rims off the Black Jeep if I can replace them with some different tires. My first thought is to keep them for my next Jeep, but Robin kept telling me the ’07 WAS my next Jeep and that I should sell the tires since the rims wouldn’t fit on the ’07. I said “okay” and told her that if God wanted me to have the ’07 Rubicon, then He would provide the extra money for it. I put an ad on a Jeep website that I frequent to see if anyone might want to buy the tires and rims. Not 10 minutes after I posted the ad, [singlepic id=214 w=320 h=240 float=left]I got an email from a guy in NY stating he wanted the tires and to consider them sold! Robin and I got excited, and she booked my flight to go get the Jeep. This is where it gets REAL exciting. I looked for Jeeps ALL over the nation and where do you think my Jeep was? Greensboro NC. I was flying back to NC to get my Jeep AND I would get to see my family on the way back out to Colorado.
Wait, it gets even better! I go pick up my Jeep on Thursday, 1 NOV 12 and it is just as clean and nice as was posted. I crawled under the Jeep and it didn’t have even one scratch on any of the skid plates – it had NEVER been off roaded. I had located some cheap tires and rims for the black Jeep on the way back to NC, but they were 40 minutes away and $250.00. I received an email while I was test driving the ’07, I was not able to get the spare tires. I did another search and found another set that was only 10 minutes from the dealership and cheaper. SCORE! I spent Friday with Shelby and went Friday afternoon to swap the tires off the black Jeep, but found when I got there that the storage facility had lost the key to the locking lugnuts – not good. A local tire shop tried to help by giving me several generic lugnut keys, but none of them worked. I had bought some really good locking lugnuts and the key was unique to that set. I could not locate a key over the weekend, so went back to the tire shop on Monday. Steve, one of the mechanics said he would try to get them off, but couldn’t promise anything. In the meantime, the guy from NY backed out of buying the tires. Steve was able to get the lugnuts off (To both his and my surprise). While we were swapping the tires, I get a phone call from a Jeeper in Greensboro, “Hey bud, are those tires still for sale?” Me: “Yes they are!” Him: “I’m in Charlotte now, how soon could I pick them up?” Me: “about 45 minutes!”. The guy shows up and doesn’t even question the price, he just tells me he likes them and would I help him load them up.
The moral of this rather long story is: God is REAL and He takes care of his children! Once I decided to let Him handle the situation, He worked it out where I got a better Jeep, the color I’ve always wanted, and even provided the extra money to pay for it. When God takes care of us, he doesn’t give us junk, He doesn’t do just an “Okay” job. He gives us the best! We just have to surrender all to Him and allow Him to do it. I doubted the Jeep (thought is was too good to be true), I doubted the tires (Didn’t see any way to get them off), I doubted I would be able to sell them, etc. I doubted, but because I was faithful to give the situation to Him in the first place, God delivered! I don’t doubt anymore.
