Do you remember the opportunities in the magazines, back when you were a kid, to finish a drawing or to color a picture that you could then submit and, possibly, win a prize?  I was always surprised when the magazine published the finalists and the winners’ pictures, how different they looked from my own.

Here at Union Chapel, we’ve been thinking about the grace of God.  The Methodist perspective on grace is that it comes in three forms: prevenient grace (grace before we even know we need it), justifying grace (grace that meets us when we turn, or ask, and helps align us with God’s loving power) and, finally, sanctifying grace (grace which guides us gently away from sin and which bears fruit through our love for God, for neighbor, and for our enemies).  In an effort to demonstrate God’s grace in recent sermons, I have been telling a story about a young woman named Carla.  I had intended to tell only the first part; I thought the story complete and free-standing at the point when Carla approached the stranger who had followed her, but the response from the congregation was such that I knew the story needed me to draw out more details.  What eventually followed was a conversation in which God’s justifying grace was revealed through the kindness of a stranger.

This week, we will focus on God’s sanctifying grace, and I will invite the congregation to write “the rest of the story.”  What happens with Carla and her son, and the father who has pushed her away, and the stranger who offered Carla a new path? 

I thought I might invite you, too.  What happens next, and how are lives changed by God’s sanctifying grace?  The story, as I’ve told it so far, is below.  Write the rest; maybe it will be your story or an ending you would hope for.  If you want to share it, after you’re done, send it my way.  Yours will probably be better than mine, but I’m used to that by now.

The Story:

She was lost, and she felt so all alone. Her name was Carla, and she was on the road.  The baggage she carried wore her down but, even more, it marked her as a person who was not going back because, apparently, there was no place to go back to.  The old Mercury station wagon—the one her father had bought used so many years ago, that she had scorned but driven to the mall with her friends when she got her license—well, now that old car was her transportation; it was also her residence.  And Alexander’s.  The product of a failed romance—well, face it, a first date that didn’t lead to a second—Alexander was sixteen months old, now, asleep in his car seat when she looked in the rearview mirror, the best thing in her life, even though his life had very little good to show.

Her wound was faulty judgment. Her circumstances were the product of her choices.  That’s what her dad had said as he handed her the keys to the old wagon and sent her on her way; he offered to keep Alexander—the baby could stay--but not her.  She had made a career of making bad decisions, and her dad was sick and tired of trying to bail her out.  He’d keep the boy, but she had to go.  No, thanks.  I’ll take my chances out on the road.  Was that just one more bad choice?  She headed west.  Nowhere in particular; just west.  Probably because she’d never been.  Alexander sat behind her, in the car seat, barely visible, surrounded by everything he owned, everything she owned.  No plan; just moving on.  West.

The highway was busy.  Lots of cars, people headed to work, or home, but also families on vacation.  She had taken road trips with her family as a teenager, in this same car.  But that was before.  Now, she takes to the road all alone, alone, that is, except for the one good thing that came from one more bad choice.  She sees a car, behind her, not too close, but not too far away, either.  It seems familiar; it’s been there for miles and miles, almost as though it pulled out of her dad’s neighborhood and has been ten car lengths back all along.  Every few miles, there’s an exit.  This town, or that, McDonald's and Burger King, side-by-side, Motel 6; cars get off and new ones come down the exit ramps and join the traffic,  But that car—the one she has seen several times—seems never to leave the road. As darkness comes, it moves just a little closer, its headlights shining on the back of the old Mercury.  She changes lanes and, within a few seconds, so does the strange car and, yet, it doesn’t really bother her.  In fact, there is a strange comfort to her as she tests the stranger, just a little bit, speeding up and seeing that the car also speeds up, slowing down and watching as it also slows, almost imperceptibly.  She starts to drift off, just a little—she’s been driving for ten hours straight, now, and ought to stop but can’t make a decision—and her eyes grow heavy.  There’s a flash of light—it’s that car, behind her, flashing its bright lights—and she realizes that she must have veered into a different lane because of her sleepiness.  How did the other driver know?  She forces herself to wake up but also thinks about where to stop for the night.   And she wonders—what will that other car—the one behind her—do when she pulls off into the rest stop; it makes her strangely sad--just a bit sad--to leave the road and the kind stranger who helped her stay awake.  But, the next morning, as she and Alexander finish their vending machine breakfast, and as she fits him back into his car seat, she is surprised to see the familiar car, once again, a few parking spaces away, right there in the rest stop, engine running, seemingly waiting for her.  And, at last, she picks up her child and walks over to meet the driver who will change her life.

As she approached the other car—the car that had followed and alerted and waited for her—Carla felt a brief moment of fear; what was this all about, really, and who is this that has beckoned me?  But the driver’s window slid down and the voice spoke, clearly, “Hello Carla.  I hope I didn’t frighten you.”  And Carla was dumbfounded.  “Who is this woman, this stranger, speaking my name so kindly?  How does she know me?”  As if she had read Carla’s mind, the woman spoke, “Carla, I saw the car.  I saw the car, and I recognized it and, then, I saw you and remembered.  And then I was intrigued; something kept nudging at me.  A dozen times, I reached for the turn signal, prepared to turn off the highway, to turn around, to let you go but, each time, I felt a nudge, an impulse, a sense that I should keep following.  Last night, when you pulled into this rest stop, I drove on by and, when I got to the next exit, I felt sure it was time to turn around and go home but, as I headed back east, I just knew I had to come back to this exit and to this rest stop.”

“But—how do you know me—how do you know my name?”

“It was the car, dear—at first.  Look at your car, that Mercury wagon.  Do you see the small dent, the crease on the driver’s side, just under the mirror?  I did that on the very day my husband bought the car.  It was the same day he bought it, his first new car, and he was so proud and insisted I take it for a drive.  I scraped it against a mailbox, and I was so sure he’d be mad, but he just laughed and said—‘Well, it’s just a car, after all.’  My husband had driven the car only a couple thousand miles, and then he died, so, so suddenly.”  I decided I didn’t need two cars and, so, I sold it.  I remember the day I sold it, the man and his teenage daughter, who made fun of the car and tried to talk him out of buying a station wagon.  She kept saying that she’d be driving soon, and no way would she drive that wagon to take her friends to the mall.  You were that teenage girl, weren’t you?”

Carla was stunned as the woman’s face began to take shape in her mind—someone who had been so unimportant to her, yet who remembered such an insignificant detail in the life of a young girl.  She began to cry, but the woman said, “There, there,” and, then, “let’s go get a cup of coffee.  You drive—I’ll ride in the old station wagon with you so Alexander can be in his car seat.”

Back on the highway and up to the next exit, where a Denny’s Restaurant—the old reliable breakfast place--was waiting.  “You and Alexander had only vending machine food for breakfast, dear.  Why don’t you order something good for breakfast for each of you—a Grand Slam, or whatever you want?  Don’t worry; I’m very happy to pay and to share this time with you.”  And, so, Carla and Alexander each ate all that they could—pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, juice and more.  A banquet.

“Why did you follow me?”

“At first, it was the car.  But I saw your face, as well, when you pulled out of your father’s neighborhood.  I was intrigued.  Then, as I followed, I saw you turn your head, could tell you were talking to someone; I made out the shape of the car seat and saw the baby’s head moving, his arms waving and his hair blowing in the breeze.  I got a little closer—I don’t think you saw me—and I could see that the old wagon was packed full of stuff—what could only be described as a household on wheels—and I got the idea.  You hesitated before you pulled onto the highway like you weren’t sure which way to go, and then you gunned it toward the west and I was sure that, while you might have decided where you were going, still you were lost.  Are you lost, dear?”

And then it all started spilling out: the bad decisions, the consequences, the fights with her dad, his impatience with her, although he was right--he had cleaned up her messes for years and years and it was time for her to grow up.  This little boy—Alexander—well, no matter why or where or who, he was her one good thing, her love, her reason.  But how would she make it work—life?  How could she turn it around?  How could everything she had ever done wrong be made right once again?  Who could possibly have enough faith in her to trust her now?  Why would anyone help someone like her?

The woman surprised Carla by saying, “It’s time to go, dear.  Won’t you drive me back to my car?”  Was that it?  After she had poured out her heart to this stranger—just, “time to go?”  But, along the way, as Carla drove her back to the rest stop and her car, the woman spoke so softly and tenderly, “Come home, Carla, come home.  You’re so tired, so weary.  You’ve been running for so long.  Just come home.”  And, in that moment, Carla could see it; she knew what she needed to do…