Cars Are People Too

For as long as I can remember, I have personified cars. What I mean by this is that I think of the cars I see as seeming like people. For example... a new pickup is like a "weekend warrior". An old pickup truck is a guy in flannel. A station wagon is a person with a large rear end. A Land Rover is a hiker. A sports car is a guy with gold medallions tangled in the midst of an excessively hairy chest, etc. An Oldsmobile or Buick 4-door sedan (whose turn signal lamps, incidentally, need frequent replacing) is an elderly person . The car with the open gas cap has its fly open.

I know that personifying vehicles is not something that only I do. In fact, if you've seen the movie CARS (like I have about 3,000 times), you know that they've pictured a Hummer as a drill sergeant and a VW van as a hippie. I'm not saying any of this in a "this is what your car says about you" kind of way. Obviously, people from many different walks of life own and drive many different types of cars. It's more like what I see when I look at a car.

Cars that bear the evidence of crash are "sick". I steer clear of those cars, for fear of getting "sick" too. My van is a mother, after all and can't be taxiing children all over town when she's sick. Cars with tape over a window or tail light are bandaged and not generally contagious.

I get more and more comfortable with my van. The more dings, dents, and dimples she has and the more she sags and squeaks, the more I identify with her. She's dependable and quite reliable. She hasn't let me down yet. Tonight, I discovered that one of the van's headlights was burned out, and it seemed as though I was wearing an eyepatch all over town. I felt quite conspicuous. Fortunately, the police car who followed me for quite awhile on my way back home didn't pull her over for it.

My husband has had a little fun at my expense with regard to all of this car silliness, but his driver's side window doesn't roll down in the cold weather and has been the source of my own embarrassment on more than one occasion. So his car is as crazy as I am. Either that, or it likes to frustrate me - much like my husband does.

It's a blessed wonder that God doesn't look at people the way I look at cars. He takes no stock in the outward appearance. In 1 Samuel 16:7, God talks to Samuel about how to choose Israel's next king and says, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature... for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

I am most thankful that God sees my heart... and loves me anyway.