When you ask God to use you, He will

The Christian Writers Conference in Cambridge is something we really look forward every year. This time, we booked in for both days, Friday 19th and Saturday 20th September 2025, so that we could get the most out of the whole event, not wanting to miss any of it. We also booked in for an early arrival at the hotel where we were staying, with a view to getting there in plenty of time, having lunch and taking a nice steady drive to the conference, so that we could be there in time for the start, at 2.30.

We were doing well; the traffic wasn’t too bad and the sun was shining. I even took some lovely photos of the white feather shaped clouds from the car.  The music was playing quite loudly and although John had the Satnav on his phone, I also had made a mental note of the route, and soon became aware that John wasn’t slowing down, or even in the right lane to take the exit to Cambridge. As we drove on, I politely told him that we should have turned off there, but it didn’t seem to bother him too much, so we took the next turn off, at the large roundabout, to come back the other way on the motorway.

When we approached the slip road, John was in the right hand lane and I watched him casually change lanes, drifting over to the left, thinking to myself ‘Surely he has seen it’ but obviously not as I then shouted  “JOHN! JOHN!” Which was followed by quite a loud noise from beneath the car and several bumps later and a few carefully selected words from John, it was too late, he had driven over the strip of pavement/island whatever it was, in the middle of the road that separated the two lanes at the beginning of the motorway as you enter it from the roundabout.  (Please see photo below).

It was quite hard to notice it because it was the same colour as the road (but funnily enough, I happened to notice it). We managed to pull up on the white lines near the barrier (as there was no hard shoulder).  It was actually just as well that we stopped there when we did.

Yes, one tyre had burst and was totally flat on the front passenger side, and the rear tyre on the same side had a large bulge ballooning over the now crunched up wheel, and looking like it was about to blow any minute. We wondered what damage had been done underneath and the tracking must have been well out by now, but hey-ho, we were both quite calm, given the circumstances, and were not injured at all which was a blessing in itself. The lovely sunshine seemed to help, at least it wasn’t raining, but I couldn’t help thinking about what time we would actually get to the conference now, if at all, and to be totally honest, I felt more disappointed about that, than the damage to the SUV.

As I watched John getting out the stuff from the boot, and chucking it onto the grass verge, looking for a jack somewhere in the back, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself at what had just happened.  Never a dull moment, is the story of our lives. I eventually couldn’t hold in the laughter anymore and although John didn’t actually manage to laugh at that moment in time, there was a bit of a smile on his face, and a look that said:  ‘us, again’.

I was trying to find out where we actually were, as all the motorway signs were facing the other way, as we had passed them when we drove onto the motorway.  I looked around for a landmark so that we could let the AA know, when we eventually got through to them, but there was nothing around to tell us where we were.

I was a little away from our car, behind the barrier, when I noticed another car, driving in the same direction that we had just come from, and to my absolute astonishment, they did exactly the same thing. This was now quite unbelievable. As the car passed by I waved to the driver to say that we had just done the same thing, and I was worried that he may have burst a tyre as well, but he seemed to drive past looking at me waving, and then he stopped, on the motorway!  I went up to him and said he better check his tyres as we had done the same thing, but he said he didn’t think he had, and he was about to get out, but I said it was too dangerous as he was actually in a lane, and there was no hard shoulder, and I needed to get out of the road as well. He started to reverse back up the motorway, by this time I really needed a strong drink, but I guided him back hoping that the traffic would see me waving in the middle of the road and that the tiny orange triangle that John had put out would be noticed by the vehicles entering the motorway at some speed. When he got out he noticed that his front tyre was totally flat, so it was just as well that he stopped otherwise goodness knows what could have happened if he didn’t realise his tyre had burst. He backed up to just in front of our car and he seemed quite worried and confused about what to do, and John said that he would change his tyre for him, but he said he didn’t have a spare.  He said he would call the RAC.  His phone was quite old fashioned and he found it hard to use it to call the RAC and asked if we could help, which of course we did.  John assisted him trying to get the RAC but we didn’t know where we were.

As I said, there were no road signs and the only thing that looked different, or noticeable, was a bridge that went across the motorway that looked like a mini version of the Dartford bridge. Not a sign or landmark anywhere to say where we were. I then had a bright idea of taking a photograph with my phone of a road sign that I saw in the distance, and thought if I zoomed into the photo I could see what it said and get some idea of where we were.  When I zoomed in it didn’t make any sense to me as it was so out of focus, and it almost looked like it was written in a biblical language.

I had another bright idea and called my son to ask him to look on ‘Find my phone’ as he has me on there and he told me roughly where we were. He said we were on the slip off the roundabout at Barr Hill  heading East on the A14 towards Cambridge. This was so helpful. I was now very happy, which is more than I can say for my son as he was now very worried about us dealing with all this on the motorway.  I assured him that we were ok and would be careful. 

We were now going to be late for the conference, considering that we had left in the morning in good time, but it was just as well we did, otherwise we may have missed it altogether.

We spent a good hour and half helping the nice elderly gentleman, who also had three other passengers in the car with him who were a little bit fragile, and as he told us they all had special needs. Bless them.  They were also very pleased that we were helping them and I was glad that we could.  It actually made me realise that had it not happened to us, and we didn’t stop, and it happened to this other car, who wasn’t going to stop, what could have happened to them? as they didn’t know they had blown a tyre.  When we ask God to use us, He certainly does, and we were actually grateful that we were able to help that lovely family.  And what a gentle, kind, humble man he was, he was quite fragile himself.  God’s Word encourages us to help those in need and Jesus said when we help others we are doing it for Him.

 

As I watched John and the gentleman trying to sort things out, I couldn’t help but smile again, as they both stood there looking at their phones in the glaring sunlight, struggling to see and hear. I had to go to the rescue.  I told the gentleman that I would take both phones and listen out as John was hard of hearing, and the gentleman told us that he also was hard of hearing and also had tinnitus, and so does John. So I had both of their phones on speaker, one in each hand, as we waited for the AA to answer and held on for the RAC, trying to give them directions of where we actually were.

We helped the gentleman sort himself out and he had enough problems of his own to deal with, but at least the RAC were on their way to him, about 20 minutes away by now.

For us on the other hand, we got nowhere with the AA so I managed to find a local tyre company, Just Tyres at 30 Clifton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7EB who I totally recommend if you ever need tyres, and dealt with a lovely man there called Kiron who was so helpful and went above and beyond to get our tyres for us and also Josh who checked the car over and had to do the tracking as well.

When we got to the writers conference, we said “Have we got a story to tell”.

The conference was fabulous, as always, it just gets better every year.  We met some lovely people and listened to some encouraging talks and advice.  

And to top it all, two lovely women from the Kingdom Living Ministries prayer team prayed for me and God healed my back there and then.  I literally felt heat on my lower back and as I stretched my back it clicked a few times and all pain left, and I feel great not having any more back pain. Praise God.