The Yugo Years: Lessons in Trusting God

By Gina Stearns

I hate to admit it but in the late 80’s, I was one of the 141,000 people who owned a Yugo, an experimentally cheap compact car from Yugoslavia. At the time, it brought many nightmares, while still being the source of many laughs too. My family has told a ton of jokes about my old car, if one can call a Yugo a car.

My having purchased a Yugo was fallout from a very stormy divorce. I didn’t really have much choice.  Long gone were the dreamy days of driving a Honda Accord.  It was an easy automatic, but the Yugo was a stubborn standard.  Part of that aftershock was an agreement to receive lessons in driving standard from my soon-to-be Ex.  So, when I first got the car, I had one, that’s right, ONE lesson. Some people do not know the difference between singular and plural. It seems that a good deal of my life has been to be trained without a whole lot of help or preparation, but despite the learning curve, I seem to acquire the ability to do the hard things alone. Or so it initially appears. Actually, the Lord has always been near or with me, and that is my only real claim to success. Still, I did not get the idea of how the Yugo’s gears worked, much like my recent experience with my new mountain bike.  But that is a story for another time. Despite my inexperience, I would once drive that Yugo uphill and it would sputter out because I kept thinking higher altitude, bigger gear, right?  Wrong!  I stood there with my foot on the break with a strong decline behind me.  The only thing I could do was to back down — bit by bit.  I remember telling my father-in-law, wondering what I should do next time. He gave great advice that I never forgot — accompanied with a teary-eyed chuckle.

PRACTICAL LESSON LEARNED: Gina, “You shift down, you don’t back down.”  I laughed with him relieving the extended anxiety of that event.  His kind instruction and sense of humor helped me to keep driving standard.

SPIRITUAL LESSON LEARNED:  Sometimes wisdom makes no sense until after you need it.  But then it helps in future situations.

In addition, that car was a bit of a challenge to drive it because of its mechanical deficiency.  My Yugo always seemed to refuse to start whenever it got wet. I was told that it was water in the distributor cap. What did that mean?  All I knew was that it was very unreliable.  Depending on where it was, it could prove to be very dangerous and terrifying.  One time in the middle of a huge city intersection, it had conked out.  Really?  I was already stressed out as a single mom who was carrying her most precious cargo.  My three daughters who were small back then were there in the Yugo in the middle of this chaos.  Of course it was raining too.  I did what I had to and got out and started pushing it out of the intersection.  One of the advantages to having a tiny, lightweight car is that I could pretty much move it all by myself. And I did!  I got out and started to push that baby-ballasted Yugo off the main road.  All of a sudden, a couple of police officers came along and offered to help while I got back inside and steered it.  I landed write in a parking spot in front of a Christian book shop where the girls and I browsed until the rain stopped.  That part was a blessing.

PRACTICAL LESSON:  I can do hard things when it came to providing and protecting my girls.

SPIRITUAL LESSON:  God will move me out of danger’s way even if he has to use law enforcement to do that. He may also afterward place me in a heavenly haven.

As time went on, I could better drive that Yugo, and I was happily getting to my teaching job at school.  Usually that car ran on prayer, and family would joke about how all its corrosion was a result of having been stuck on the top level of the ship coming out of Yugoslavia. A friend had heard that the Yugo is totaled out at just 40 mph. Lovely!  Just what I needed to hear!  Another comment was made about how I would get exceptional gas mileage because I can never get much travel out of that tin can, so a tank would last forever.  That was actually true. In addition, my brother-in-law thought it would be the funniest thing if I got a Mack Truck horn installed for my car, that way whenever I hit it, a concerned driver in front of me would look back and instead of huge eighteen-wheeler they would barely see me and my wee car. Eye roll. But it was mine, and at least I had a way to travel –some of the time.

One time I had parked the car right in front of the Shur-fine Market and ran into the store to grab one gallon of milk. I locked the three girls in the Yugo and since the lot was fairly level, I thought I was fine to not engage the emergency break.  I dashed in, got the milk and paid for it, all in less than five minutes.  I ran out to get into my car and… it was gone! I was astounded and started looking directly ahead, but instead the car had slowly curved left into the parking lot, and inside were three very different reactions from each of my three little girls.  Rachel, the oldest was crying probably thinking she was going to die (maybe she had heard about the car totaling at such a low speed). Then I saw Sarah’s little head bobbing up and down in laughter; she thought the whole thing hysterical.  But smack in the middle was Hannah who remained unflappable with her thumb in her mouth.  She just calmly looked at both her sisters, out the window, and never seemed to have a care.

PRACTICAL LESSON: Always put on the emergency break.

SPIRITUAL LESSON:  Each of us had a different lens with which to assess situations.  Tears or laughs can be a reaction depending on your perspective, but calm in the midst of trial is the wisest way to react.  Go Hannah!

Winters could be grueling with that little Yugo because the left windshield wiper didn’t operate correctly. I am giggling just remembering the crazy way it would slide left and then never come back to center because it would move past and over the left edge of the car and there it got stuck in a repetitive spasm, never to return to clean the windshield.  Have you ever had to drive shift stick and then put your left hand out on the windshield so it would hit your hand enough to return to the center of the window and then down? It’s a killer on cold, snowy days, and not the safest way to drive. But I did that too!

Practical lesson:  Never buy a Yugo, no matter what!!!!

Spiritual Lesson:  Sometimes we just don’t know or understand the lesson, but we never give up knowing that God strengthens us for what seems the impossible.

I have many more stories about that Yugo, but I do believe one thing about its design—short is sweet especially when it comes to blog-writing, so I will end it here.  “YouGo”, my friend! And remember, drive safely; depend on God fully!

Within Reason by Gina Stearns

Christians are often accused of being ignorant buffoons following after a God they cannot see, directed by an antiquated book foolishly perceived to be His actual words. Albeit, Christians are called to a faith in something they cannot see, BUT it is anchored on a verifiable and credible proof. Our God doesn’t just say He loves us or promises Paradise, and then leaves it at that.  Oh, no!  The God of the Bible goes way beyond that and supports a rational and dependable faith. It is provable in His son Jesus Christ, a distinct part of the Trinity who comes down as the perfect sacrifice of love sacrificed perfectly in an extraordinary, yet watertight defense of our God’s love. Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is not only historically proven with more than enough specific witnesses to convince any resistant jury, but His life has fulfilled many prophecies that are found in said “antiquated” book. Faith is required, but God also expects us to use our minds, reason, and see that proof in the sacrificial love of His son, and the fulfillment of his promises and prophecies. It all hinges on what you do with Jesus, who himself supports God’s Word, the Bible. 

Although God’s mind is greater and more infinite than ours (Isaiah 55:8) –after all He is God and we are not—His Word suggests that we have a finite mind, though it is far from useless. If we are created in His image, our minds are pretty extraordinary compared to the rest of His other creation. We are made to reason, imagine, create, communicate and solve problems and much more.  In fact, He commands us to use our minds as an expression of our love for HIM in the Old Testament Shema: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind.” It is not lock-step thoughtless, robotic kind of love, but one that understands, even if not fully, the object of that love, and God’s full expression of what Love really is.  It was not until only recently that I also further noticed that God wants to share in the mind’s work not only as our creator, or as an expression of love, but in understanding of exactly what he has done at salvation and beyond.  

In Isaiah 1:18, we see the re-creation dynamic in God’s helping us to understand how salvation works and the wonderful similes with which the Master Poet illustrates the way to perceive that work of salvation.  “Come now, let us reason together, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. I used to focus on the later part of that verse, especially as I looked out my winter window on a freshly fallen snow…God has purified me in that visual way…my sins are gone.  They are not just covered up like the animal sacrifices of Old Testament worth, but taken away in that one-time “tetelestai- it is finished, once for all” fashion. However, in my latest reading, I observed something new, something amazingly relational in that first part.

“Come let us reason together,” caught my attention, and for good reason.  I am an English teacher at a classical Christian school. A classical school is one in which there is a Trivium of learning stages:  Grammar, Logic or Dialectic and Rhetoric.  We tailor our teaching to the way students learn as well as their developmental stage all to a culmination of the writing, presentation and defense of their thesis on a topic of their choice. We don’t just cram facts down our students’ throats and let that be the end of it, only for students to spit facts back out on a test. We teach them how to think. Though in the Grammar stage we do focus on chants, songs, and rhymes to helps students remember, as this is the age where the acquiring of facts is a thrill and a welcomed challenge. It goes much further than that.  Logic is the stage where the student is more apt to argue and seek proof for assertions.  Students are naturally “pert” and this feisty argumentative stage is not wasted in the Classical school and is actually used to develop the dialectic ability to logically prove their point or stand.  It develops the mind to search for truth and the reason behind the why or how.  Students at this stage actually try to stump the teacher, not with a disrespectful air, but as one wresting with their minds and enjoying the grappling game of it all. We have discussions on topics that are difficult and mentally or ethically challenging.  There are many opportunities to look to logic and reason. It is far different than the emotional knee-jerk reaction of much of the drivel displayed on social media.  Finally in the Rhetoric stage, we train the minds to now take the facts and the arguments and defend with precision in two ways.  First the student must exquisitely write their research paper complete with strong support and then to present that paper with rhetorical articulation to persuade the audience. They include a thoughtful refutation and a focus on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness embodying that source: God and his Word within a biblical worldview. 

This reasoning together is something our students do all the time. So, when I saw this in Isaiah, I was struck with how much God wants this same learning relationship with us. In a sort of sweet Socratic exchange, He is acknowledging we are rational creatures who want and need to reason. He even gives us figurative language to get a profound glimpse of what His salvation looks like and what it means to us. There are many instances in the Scriptures like Job 38 or 39, God as Father or as the Son, asks probing questions to help analyze the depth of who he is and his mind and heart for us. He wants us as good students sitting at his feet, like Mary who chose the better part.

Though so simple I also love that he personally invites us to come to him and that we are not left alone to figure things out, but along with him as King, Teacher, Creator, Father –we are able to discover his beauty, truth, and goodness in this special summoning. It isn’t just about the information, but the relationships that develop over the reasoning and wisdom which God has told us to seek over and over in His Word.  I know when I invite my students to reconcile their minds to difficult topics, it is done with a loving care for them to do what God commands here: “Come, let us reason together”.  It is not just the evidence I want them to know, but beyond that to ponder and stretch their minds into a world of understanding.  This is the sweet personal connection between the Heavenly father and his earthy pupils, all within reason and beyond.

Photo Credit: “Sitting at the Feet of Jesus” by http://www.PLSilvana.org