We all know that there is only one thing that we should fear and that is God our Heavenly Father.  However, we all have fears.   My daughter has a fear of the dark ,  my brothers feared what my dad would do to them when he got home from work after they had been tormenting my mom all day long. 

What is your fear?  As I was growing up I had two fears- one was being left alone and the other was failing.  You know what -- I still to this day have those fears.  

On October 26^th 2008, I had to face those two fears head on.  I was driving in my car with 2 of my 3 children heading east on I10 at about 5pm.  We were heading back from a wedding in California in which my daughter was a flower girl.  We were having a nice smooth ride, cruising along the interstate and making great time- looking forward to watching a little Sunday night movie when got home.  All of a sudden I heard this loud  sound come from the car-  I looked out my side mirror and in horror I see the remnants of my rear wheel and the under surface of my car fly out into the interstate in a thousand pieces.

Thankfully (Joe this is what I am thankful for), I was able to maintain control of the car and pull it off the road safely.  I examined the damage-I had a total blow out of the rear wheel of the car and lots of damage in the wheel well with wires handing down.  No big deal I thought- I will just change the tire and off we would go……. Little did I know that God had a different plan for me-

I did not plan on the car falling off the jack while there was no tire on the car.  I did not plan on the jack getting bent and being unusable, I did not plan on walking a mile from car along the interstate to get cell coverage for the phone, I did not plan on no one stopping to check in on us, I did not plan on being helpless on the side of I10 in the dark, 2 hours from home, in middle of nowhere with 2 children (with Dalton asking me why do bad things always happen to us).  After all this doubt and wonder it was at this time that we all prayed, we thanked God for our safety, for the strength and courage of the children and for God helping me face my fears.  We also prayed that we would always find time  to stop for someone on the road. You see, I felt alone and I felt like I failed at first.  I was not with Ranelle but I could feel God’s presence in that car as the other other cars traveling 80mph made our car vibrate.   The three of us learned a lot that night. We learned about the power of prayer, we learned that even when bad things happen- it is sometimes a good thing to lean on God and be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving- Be thankful in everything!

Jason Paladino

Financial Director