Fuel Truck Driver

"A fuel truck driver was on a delivery run during a raging blizzard in the days before CB radios and cell phones. While travelling along a dark, deserted stretch between two isolated towns, the truck skidded off the road and wound up hopelessly stuck. As the storm passed and sunrise came, the temperature dropped to nearly 40 below zero. The driver stayed with the truck in the hopes that someone would pass by and rescue him. After many hours of waiting, he ran out of diesel fuel. Without the engine running, the truck's heater was useless. When police found him later the next day, he had frozen to death.

This kind of tale is not uncommon in the northern parts of Canada. It seems that hardly a winter goes by that someone isn't lost. The thing that makes this story so remarkable is that the driver had 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel in the tanker he was hauling. At first glance it would seem there was no way to move it from the tanker into the truck in order to keep it running. But when we heard the story, we immediately thought that there must have been some way to do that. The driver could have saved his life if he would have just tried something, anything! If he would have just focused his energy on using the resources that he had in the situation that he found himself in, he would have survived.

Many of us find ourselves in the same kind of place. Something (a behavior, circumstance, attitude, or a relationship) is killing us. There are answers or resources close at hand, but somehow it seems impossible for us to reach them or put them into action. We are comfortable in the cab of the truck, hopeful that someone will come and rescue us or that our situation will somehow change by itself. For many of us, the fear of what we will find if we leave our "truck" often seems so much worse than the actual issues with which we struggle."
(excerpt from the Power of Brokenness)