Donna and How to Say Yes
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
”
The history of a family of six with four kids, twenty years of marriage, and a tight budget means mini vans. So many mini vans. Never new and always “special”. There was the Mazda van that lasted less than six months and the several Dodge Caravans that left us stranded in three different provinces. But the one that yielded the best story was the Ford Freestar.
We had three little kids at the time and had recently moved to the big city of Vancouver. My husband was a student at the time and we were so happy to have some Saturday family time at Stanley Park before he had to study for the afternoon. We decided that after the outing I would drop him off with the kids, kids would nap, he would study, and I would get groceries.
As I was driving into the Superstore parking lot I noticed a bit of smoke coming out from the hood. Seriously?! I used the payphone outside the store to call Vern. He suggested that I should just come home for him to have a look at it. But the closer I got to the van, I realized this was no mere overheated engine and then two young men standing about ten feet from my vehicle and pointing got my attention. They were pointing at my van which was now spewing smoke from the hood.
“Hey lady! Is that your van? You gotta call 9-1-1!”
“No I don’t! It’s fi….” No. It wasn’t fine. It was flames. Full on flames bursting from my van. The “Hey lady!” guy just passed me his cell phone while he grabbed me by the elbow to move my in-shock-butt to a safer spot; an upper level parking lot where we could still watch.
Does it sound like I’m describing entertainment? Well, within minutes of my 9-1-1 call, the flames were roaring at least four feet high and as I looked around I became aware that I was surrounded by crowd of about fifty young men approximately 18-25 years of age. I hate to gender/age stereotype but the facts are the facts. But there they were, and they were pumped. I actually overheard one guy calling a friend on his phone hurry up and get down to Superstore.
While the firefighters were putting out the flames and my crowd of guys was cheering, I snapped out of it and actually thought to phone my husband. “Hey! Can I borrow someone’s phone?” About six phones were eagerly thrust toward me. I was the lady of the hour.
“Hello?”
“Hi Vern. Um. Did you just hear that explosion?”
“Yes!”
“Well that was the tire from our van because it’s on fire.” I really was finding the whole thing quite hilarious by this point.
I can’t recall his exact words but I know he told me he was going to figure out a way to get down there tout suite (definitely not his words). I hung up wondering how this was going to happen since he had no vehicle and 3 small children.
This is where Donna comes in. Brace yourself, Donna. You are going to hate this but, well, it has to be said. We were fairly new to our church at the time so Vern really wasn’t sure who to call. The only number he could find in his panic was Donna’s. And she just said yes, she would get there as soon as possible. That’s it. She didn’t tell us that she was in the middle of cooking a roast dinner for her family or that she had a toddler taking a nap.
When Vern arrived about twenty minutes later I was pretty easy to spot in the crowd of, now about 75, young men. We all waved and cheered as he came to join the show. It was actually starting to break up now as the flames were gone and only a black hull remained of the Freestar. “Hey, how did you get here so fast? Who’s with the kids?”
“Donna came. She brought her kids and is feeding everyone a roast beef dinner right now. She apologized for not getting there faster but she had a hard time waking Elise up.”
I just stared at him. This new friend had packed up her lovely meal and woke up her toddler. Woke up her toddler, people! By the time we arrived home it felt like a little party. The basement suite smelled wonderful and we had six happy kids on our hands.
It’s not everyday that you get to watch your van burn up but it was Donna’s "yes", that impacted me more. In the years after, I was challenged by this on many occasions. Before meeting Donna I had developed a bad habit of, when someone would ask for help, subtly letting them know the ways in which it would inconvenience me before saying yes. I mean, I’d do it, I guess, but you need to know what a sacrifice it is. Sigh. In fact, after years of learning from Donna’s immediate and unqualified yes, I still catch myself giving too much information.
Donna, now that you have been completely mortified, let me say that I know you’re not perfect and that there were probably times when you regretted your “yes”. But it has blessed me so much over the years and when I think of our need to respond to God this way, I believe that being promptly willing to say yes, in this way, is a sacred thing. If, at all, possible, just say yes.
