Not long ago, my wife called me at work to tell me where I could find the car. “Oh, great,” I said, because that must mean our car was broken down somewhere. It’s our only car at present, because we’re letting our daughter use our good vehicle. Besides that, we recently put two somewhat faithful old cars to sleep. They had served us and our six kids pretty well for many years.

I’ve been riding my bicycle to work, which is about three miles one-way. After work, I rode home, had dinner, and then rode to where the car was waiting, which was not too far. My wife had told me the exhaust had fallen and was dragging on the ground, so I brought some wire to wire it back up. I was hoping it wasn’t anything serious, which would mean getting a whole new exhaust. This car isn’t worth what it would cost to install a new exhaust.

As I drew near to the place, I was dreading what I would find. I don’t have a lot of confidence about working on cars, so I wasn’t sure if it would be something I could temporarily fix, or if I’d have to drive it home with the muffler dragging on the ground.

As I turned onto the street where the car was parked, I saw a light under the car. “What’s that all about,” I wondered. Coming to the back of the car, I found an older man under it, wiring up the muffler. He crawled out from underneath and said, “Can I help you?” I smiled and said, “It’s my car.” He seemed a little embarrassed being caught working on my car, but explained that he saw the car there in front of his house with the muffler hanging down, and thought someone probably wouldn’t want to come back to the car after work and find the muffler on the ground.

All I could say was, “Wow, thanks a lot.” Many times. I asked him his name, and he said it was Dave. Some folks might think it wasn’t any of his business to work on the car of someone he didn’t know, but I say God bless Dave. A lot.