{"id":438,"date":"2016-03-05T21:40:21","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T03:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/?p=438"},"modified":"2016-08-14T21:36:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T02:36:47","slug":"438","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/?p=438","title":{"rendered":"I heard Jesus Singing in an Old Ford Truck ~ “The Story of Old Henry”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Old<\/a>

Stephen and “Old Henry” the Ford truck in the country circa June 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

Author’s Note: \u00a0No copyright infringement is intended by including the words to the\u00a0Untitled Hymn<\/em> in this blog entry. \u00a0This beautiful song of hope was composed by Chris Rice the lyrics are merely included here for illustration purposes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCome to Jesus\u201d \u2013 I Heard Jesus Singing in an Old Ford Truck<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Story of \u201cOld Henry\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

E<\/strong>ven a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0~ Carl Jung ~<\/span><\/p>\n

D<\/strong>arkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0F<\/strong>or you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.\u00a0 ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:5 ~ (ESV)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 November 2011<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 T<\/span><\/strong>he November night was clear, yet unusually dark and cold.\u00a0 The harsh orange glow of the overhead street lamps lit my path as I slowly made my way to the beige and brown Ford truck parked on the street.\u00a0 The sound of the buzzing being emitted from the street lamps was drowned out only by the occasional rumble of a car passing down the ancient brick street.\u00a0 With my heart heavy and my mind a million miles away, I unlocked the door and pulled myself up onto the bench seat of \u201cHenry,\u201d my old Ford F150.\u00a0 As I sat in the cold darkness of the truck\u2019s cab, I began to pray.\u00a0 I prayed the same prayer that I\u2019d prayed over and over during the last few months of my life; a prayer asking God where he was and why he was letting me go through the struggles that I\u2019d been through.\u00a0 After a few silent moments, I lifted my head and began to search my ring of keys for the one that would bring old Henry to life.\u00a0 When I finally found Henry\u2019s ignition key, I inserted it and woke him up from his slumber.\u00a0 For a few moments, the only sound to be heard was the soft and familiar rumble of his V-8 engine \u2013 a sound that I\u2019d come to find oddly comforting.\u00a0 Suddenly without warning, the radio came to life; a radio that had not previously been working properly or even turned on.\u00a0 As the chords of a familiar song began to strum through the old speakers, Chris Rice started to sing, and his words came and began to fill the emptiness of my heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weak and wounded sinner
\nLost and left to die
\nO, raise your head for love is passing by<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Come to Jesus
\nCome to Jesus
\nCome to Jesus and live<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0A<\/strong>s I sat there listening to the song in shocked silence, while simultaneously shivering from the cold, I felt the tears began to fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

I<\/strong> never really wanted an ugly old Ford truck.\u00a0 During my high school years, I grew up driving big old trucks \u2013 old Fords and Chevys that had all seen better days.\u00a0 Some guys are die hard loyalists to one brand of truck only, but I am not that way. \u00a0I have a particular fondness for all old trucks.\u00a0 I\u2019m not partial to any particular brand.\u00a0 While I\u2019d toyed for some time with the idea of purchasing a small truck to take to the lake or to take the dogs riding around in, what I\u2019d had in mind had been a much smaller, late model pickup in relatively good shape.\u00a0 Certainly, I\u2019d never planned on buying a big old rusty 1988 Ford F-150 that was as ugly as sin.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m a glutton for punishment, or maybe there was something inherently special about Henry that drew me to him.\u00a0 In any case, I ended up with a big old temperamental money pit of a Ford.\u00a0 While he only had 93,000 actual miles on his odometer, Henry had definitely seen better days.\u00a0 With his numerous battle scars and his homemade leopard print seat cover, it was apparent that this truck had lived a very useful life somewhere in the boondocks of Mississippi.\u00a0 He had also been well loved until his original owner passed away, and he was parked for quite some time before I found him.<\/span><\/p>\n

F<\/strong>or some reason unknown to me, someone had done a real hack job on Henry\u2019s fuse box.\u00a0 When I took possession of him, I noticed that a lot of things didn\u2019t work; or if they did, they worked sporadically and erratically.\u00a0 There were a number of missing fuses.\u00a0 There were fuses of the wrong amperage in the wrong slots.\u00a0 There were blown fuses.\u00a0 Some of his lights didn\u2019t work, and his original vintage 1988 AM\/FM radio wasn\u2019t working either.\u00a0 Eventually I ended up taking out all the fuses and replacing every one of them as well as replacing some of the wiring.\u00a0 Even then, the radio still worked only intermittently.\u00a0 I had plans to replace it at some point anyway.\u00a0 At least that had been my plan until that cold November evening.\u00a0 2011 was a very difficult year for my family.\u00a0 We\u2019d suffered losses including the loss of my grandmother who had passed away the month before from pancreatic cancer.\u00a0 We had just buried her in October when I heard someone in my church sing Chris Rice\u2019s \u201cUntitled Hymn\u201d the very next Sunday after her funeral.\u00a0 I remember thinking to myself what an amazing song of hope it was.\u00a0 Now there I was on that Wednesday evening when God used old Henry\u2019s radio to play that same message of hope for me.\u00a0 I know for a fact that the radio had not been turned on when I had parked the truck; it had not even been working earlier that night.\u00a0 I also know for a fact that it was not tuned to K-Love, a local Christian music station.\u00a0 I\u2019d previously left it tuned to a country music station the last time it was working.\u00a0 The sensible side of me knows that it must have been an electrical gremlin related to the fuse box mess.\u00a0 The spiritual side of me knows that Jesus was sitting next to me on the bench seat in the cold as God gave me that song of comfort at just the right time in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

I<\/strong>\u2019ve never been a very religious person.\u00a0 I know that will come across as a bit surprising to those who know me, but it\u2019s true.\u00a0 Instead, I consider myself to be more of a spiritual person and I\u2019d much rather focus on building relationships rather than going through rituals out of habit.\u00a0 I do believe that God in his utmost sovereignty acts in such amazing ways to teach us valuable life lessons.\u00a0 He places people and things in our lives and uses them in the most unlikely of circumstances to reach us and to teach us.\u00a0 In this particular situation, he used a Ford to give me a message of hope.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now your burden’s lifted,<\/em><\/strong>
\nAnd carried far away,
\nAnd precious blood has washed away the stain… so<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\nSing to Jesus ,
\nSing to Jesus ,
\nSing to Jesus and live<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0November 2011 – May 2014<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I<\/strong>n the months and years following that spiritual experience, Old Henry and I enjoyed some good times together.\u00a0 For the most part, his radio continued to work as it was designed to, and I finally decided against replacing it with a newer and fancier model. \u00a0I guess a part of my subconscious has always wondered if God would someday speak to me through that old radio again.\u00a0 While I have always loved driving Henry, I never made him my daily driver because he did (and still does) have a penchant for gulping fuel like it was going out of style.\u00a0 He also doesn\u2019t have the most stellar track record for reliability.\u00a0 With his dual fuel tanks, keeping gas in Henry was often an expensive proposition.\u00a0 Still, I managed to have good times with him.\u00a0 My wife and I would load up the dogs and go have a picnic at the reservoir, or I\u2019d take my late grandfather riding around in Henry.\u00a0 I think I inherited my love of old trucks from him and he loved Henry as much as I do.\u00a0 I have some really good memories in that truck.\u00a0 Still, I managed to only put 5,000 miles on Henry in 5 years time.\u00a0 Maintaining an older vehicle takes a lot of time, effort and money;\u00a0 but more money than anything else.\u00a0 Eventually, Henry started requiring more and more work to keep him running, and I started driving him less frequently.\u00a0 In May of 2014, I had Henry\u2019s cooling system re-done and discovered that he needed a lot more work than I wanted to undertake at the time.\u00a0 I think the last time I ever drove Henry was around June or July of that year.\u00a0 Not wanting to have him take up driveway space at my house, I parked him 20 miles away at my great-aunt\u2019s house in the country and promptly forgot about him.\u00a0 I would occasionally drive out to the country and crank Henry\u2019s engine when I remembered to, but I eventually forgot to do that as well.\u00a0 As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, Henry sat and slowly continued to deteriorate; however, he was always in the back of my mind.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And like a newborn baby,<\/em><\/strong>
\nDon’t be afraid to crawl,
\nAnd remember when you walk sometimes we fall… so<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\nFall on Jesus,
\nFall on Jesus,
\nFall on Jesus and live<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

April 2015<\/em><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a02015<\/strong> quickly proved to be the most challenging year of my life.\u00a0 For reasons that I won\u2019t get into at this time, the events that took place in the first three months of 2015 caused me to lose, to suffer, to grieve and to eventually to shut down.\u00a0 I began to lose hope in people and even started to question my faith.\u00a0 I know now that my suffering was minor compared to what many believers have gone through.\u00a0 In my mid 30\u2019s, I\u2019m just now realizing and understanding that loss is an integral part of life here on earth and none of us are immune to it or exempt from it.\u00a0 The trials that we go through solidify us as humans, and it is our hope which gives us perseverance.\u00a0 When we lose hope, we have truly lost everything.\u00a0 In early April 2015, I began to once more think about poor old Henry sadly sitting and being neglected out in the country.\u00a0 His battery was already pretty old when he was parked, so months of sitting and being unused had discharged it to the point where I found it necessary to remove it and put it on the battery charger for several hours.\u00a0 I went and got his battery out then brought it home to Clinton and tried to get it charged again.\u00a0 On April 5, 2015, Easter Sunday, we went to visit my great aunt that evening after church.\u00a0 I took Henry\u2019s battery with me and had planned to re-install it and get him running again.\u00a0 It was a dreary, chilly, rainy afternoon.\u00a0 With my wife holding the umbrella and a flashlight, I opened Henry\u2019s creaky hood and proceeded to hook the battery up.\u00a0 There was just one problem.\u00a0 At some point in Henry\u2019s lifetime, someone had changed the battery cables out so that both positive and negative cables were now black.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t remember which way the battery posts were facing when I\u2019d taken the battery out and didn\u2019t even think about tracing the cables to see which one was going where.\u00a0 Suddenly, as I hooked the cables up, a giant flash of sparks that rivaled some of the best Independence Day fireworks displays I\u2019ve ever seen materialized before our eyes.\u00a0 A giant fireball shot out of the engine compartment accompanied by an equally loud bang.\u00a0 The words of the song I\u2019d heard years ago came rushing back to me: Come to Jesus\u2026Come to Jesus\u2026<\/em> I just knew at that moment that Denise and I were about to meet Jesus!<\/span><\/p>\n

I<\/strong> know that many who read this probably aren\u2019t mechanically inclined and aren\u2019t acutely aware of the repercussions that arise from accidentally reversing the battery cables when installing an automotive battery.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t know the outcome of such a horrible mistake, I first and foremost encourage you to never try this at home with your own vehicle!\u00a0 Needless to say, just about every electrical component all the way back to Henry\u2019s firewall was fried.\u00a0 Suddenly, Henry needed a lot more than just a new battery.\u00a0 Fortunately, his fusible links blew as designed, and this saved the surge from destroying any electrical components from the firewall on back.\u00a0 But everything under the hood was a mess.\u00a0 In disgust, I slammed the hood shut and proceeded to forget about him for about 5 more months.\u00a0 I was angry with myself for being so stupid, angry with the world, and angry at a certain old Ford for being such a costly nuisance and aggravation.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes the way is lonely,<\/em><\/strong>
\nAnd steep and filled with pain,
\nSo if your sky is dark and pours the rain… then<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\nCry to Jesus,
\nCry to Jesus,
\nCry to Jesus and live<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

September 2015<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

S<\/strong>pring and summer of 2015 came and went and old Henry continued to sit and rot.\u00a0 His tires began to go flat as his paint baked and oxidized under the brutal Mississippi sun.\u00a0 I quit going out to the country because I couldn\u2019t stand the sight of the truck just sitting there.\u00a0 Occasionally the question of what to do with old Henry would come up in the course of our conversation, and my wife and I never could seem to arrive at mutual solution.\u00a0 I toyed with the idea of selling him as he was while my wife toyed with the idea of calling the junkyard to come pick him up.\u00a0 Deep down inside, I somehow knew that neither was the right thing to do.\u00a0 Fortunately, I decided to postpone the decision until I finally decided in the fall of 2015 to have him fully repaired and put back on the road.\u00a0 Time had not been kind to Henry, and his problems had continued to multiply as he sat in the weather.\u00a0 When the tow truck came to pick him up, yellow jackets had built their nest underneath him and literally gave us a run for our money.\u00a0 In the end, I finally ended up fixing everything that was wrong with Henry and made a promise to him that he\u2019d be driven at least a couple of times each week and would never again be parked and forgotten.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

O, and when the love spills over,<\/em><\/strong>
\nAnd music fills the night,
\nAnd when you can’t contain you joy inside… then<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\nDance for Jesus,
\nDance for Jesus,
\nDance for Jesus and live<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

March 2016 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

S<\/strong>ince bringing Henry back to life, we have traveled nearly 2,000 miles together.\u00a0 I guess you could say that we\u2019ve made up for lost time.\u00a0 Today, he runs better than he ever has and I keep his radio constantly tuned to K-Love.\u00a0 Whenever I drive old Henry, I\u2019m always reminded of God\u2019s never ending love for me.\u00a0 You see, everything has a story, no matter how small or insignificant it may be. \u00a0This just happens to be Old Henry\u2019s story.\u00a0 I\u2019ve thought for a long time how I could share it in a way that would also share the message of hope that we have through God\u2019s unfailing love for his children.\u00a0 I know that Old Henry is just a truck.\u00a0 He is nothing more than nearly a ton of Detroit steel that has been rusted and battered by years of use and neglect.\u00a0 He\u2019s nothing more than an inanimate object \u2013 a tool if you will \u2013 designed for hauling people and cargo.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a materialistic person in the least, and material possessions have little significance to me.\u00a0 But I will say this – \u00a0Henry is a special truck.\u00a0 Of the many vehicles I\u2019ve driven and owned through the years, he\u2019s the only one I\u2019ve ever had a bond with.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what the future holds for old Henry or even for myself, but I do know that for as long as I have him I will continue to maintain him, care for him, and constantly be listening to his radio for any new message God has for me.\u00a0 He will never be parked out in the country again, alone and forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n

S<\/strong>everal people have asked me if I have future plans to restore old Henry.\u00a0 While some might argue that he is still fairly presentable considering his age, 28 years of time are definitely showing.\u00a0 My answer is no.\u00a0 I like Henry just the way he is with his many scrapes, bumps, dents and rust.\u00a0 You see, these flaws are a part of who he is.\u00a0 Every dent, every scratch, and every crease tells a part of his story.\u00a0 Even if I wanted to spend the exorbitant sum of money that it would take to remove these flaws and restore old Henry, he would never be the same as he is now.\u00a0 He would lose his character.\u00a0 He\u2019s not a show truck by any means, and he never will be.\u00a0 Instead, he\u2019s a truck that is accepted for what he is.\u00a0 In spite of all his flaws, I think he\u2019s a great truck.\u00a0 We as humans are like old Henry.\u00a0 We are not perfectly kept show vehicles either.\u00a0 We all have many flaws, imperfections, and battle scars that mar us.\u00a0 We can attempt to hide behind a beautiful and restorative veneer of our own making, but in doing so we risk losing sight of who we really are and the river that we\u2019ve traveled down in life.\u00a0 But in spite of these imperfections, God still loves us and accepts us just as we are.\u00a0 Sometimes we feel the pain of being alone \u2013 forgotten and abandoned like an old Ford truck. \u00a0But I know that there is one who will never forget me or abandon me.\u00a0 Just as I ultimately ended up not giving up on old Henry, our heavenly father never gives up on us and loves us unconditionally for who we are.\u00a0 I know that now.\u00a0 I still face struggles in my faith and in life, but I know that God will not give up on me.\u00a0 Sometimes God shows up and calls out to us in the most unlikely of places and when we least expect it; but it is always when we need it the most. \u00a0I really did hear Jesus singing in an old Ford truck.\u00a0 All we have to do is Come to Jesus and Live!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

~Stephen<\/p>\n

March 5, 2016<\/p>\n

\"StephenTruckWordpress\"<\/a>

“Old Henry” and Stephen, Circa May 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note: \u00a0No copyright infringement is intended by including the words to the\u00a0Untitled Hymn in this blog entry. \u00a0This beautiful song of hope was composed by Chris Rice the lyrics are merely included here for illustration purposes. \u201cCome to Jesus\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/canoe.stephencoleman.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}