God is good

The other day I was feeling a little depressed about something and a friend left me a message; don't be unhappy, God is good. That stuck in my head. What did happiness have to do with God's goodness?
On Sunday I was driving to meet a friend in my mom's car. Stopped at a busy traffic light, I glanced out my side window and saw this crazy looking man on the sidewalk waving at me. Wow, I thought, we sure have some nutcases in Vancouver. A second later he was still waving and gesturing at me and I thought, hmmm, maybe he's just checking me out. I had spent a lot of time on my new hairdo, maybe all the effort had finally paid off. I decided to magnanimously ignore him.
The light was about to change, and I glanced over again, and this time he was gesturing towards the bottom of my car. I could see his mouth forming words and I squinted to make them out.
"Your....car....has....a flat....tire!!!!!"
My car has a flat tire? I mouthed back at him, and he nodded his head crazily up and down. Shoot. the light changed and I had no choice but to go straight ahead. I was on the left and all the lanes were packed and there was no where to pull over. Drat.
I weaved over gradually and looked around for a gas station. nothing. At the next red light I put the car in park and leapt out, running around the car to see how flat my tire really was. The light turned green, but I gave the car behind me a look that said "If you honk at me, buddy, I'm going to stay right here for the rest of the night."
Okay, the tire was flat. Not flat enough that i'd have to pull out the spare, but flat enough to need filling up immediately. I hopped back in.
Man, whenever you need a gas station there are none around. I finally found one quite a ways away and pulled up to the air pump. There was a big sign on it that said "Out of order."
I went into the hut and there was a young man standing at the counter.
"well, hello there!" (There's no way to type the intonations of his voice properly, but imagine that the 'lo' is emphasized.)
"Your air pump is out of order." I said firmly.
"It is?" He answered lazily.
"Yes, it is. there's a sign on it that says out of order."
"There is?"
"Yes! Now, can you tell me where the next gas station is?"
"Hmmmm..... I don't know if there's one near here."
He was looking just about everywhere on me but my face, which was making me mad.
"Well, is there another one along this street?"
"I guess so.... just continue straight...."
"Thanks." I leapt back into my car and drove away quickly. The next gas station was a couple of kilometers away, but when I pulled in the air pump was working. Except it was this old greasy one that looked like it had been resurrected from a 1900's garbage dump. I yanked the hose over to my tire and squatted down to uncap it. Dark was falling.
"You got a flat tire, there!" I glanced up to see the man in the car parked next to me look out with a smile.
"Yup."
Another man pulled up on his bike and stood there staring at me curiously while I filled up the tire. Another car pulled up and a big man got out and came over to see what I was doing. Yes, folks, that's right, this is unhappy Heather's tire-pumping show. Step right up for the view of the century. Look at that! A flat tire!
The pump didn't have a pressure gauge and I tried to guess how much pressure was in my tire.
"I have a pressure gauge." the big man volunteered. He rummaged around in his car and handed me the little gauge.
"thanks a lot."
"About 30 or 35 pounds should be good." One of the other men volunteered helpfully.
"Yes, I know."
'You better get that properly fixed, you know."
"Yes, of course."
Another car pulled up, this one a red sportscar with booming music.
I finally got the tire full. I handed the gauge back to the man. I smiled at my audience. I reversed out of the gas station and glanced at the clock. About an hour late. Oh well, I would just go home.
But a few kilometers down the road I pulled over and turned off the car, resting my head on the steering wheel.
It wasn't just the tire. It was everything in my life. Nothing was working out right. (I won't bore you with the depressing details.)
And then suddenly that phrase came back to me. Don't be unhappy, God is good.
What did that mean?
In a crazy world, God is the one person who is still stable and unchanging. He lets us go through hard things because he loves us and wants to build character in us. All of this is part of his plan, his good plan, flowing out of his unchanging good nature. He never forgets to be good, and that's why we have reason to be happy.
So I guess that gives a new meaning to Happy heather's hullaballoo. It's not about my silly little escapades written to give people a chuckle. Happiness is not always light and frothy. It's a realization that because God is good, is always good, is very good; we can let go of our worries and smile, and invite people to share in our joy. Be happy, everyone, God is still good.