The Frozen Lock
By Enid Ning
I pushed, pulled and jiggled the key in the trunk lock of my Dodge Colt Turbo. Despite all my efforts, the key wouldn’t turn.
“Are you sure you have the right key, Enid?” asked Linda, looking over my shoulder.
I pulled the key out and looked at it carefully. “It’s the right one,” I answered with certainty.
In the excitement of our visit to the Montreal Chinese Presbyterian Church (CPC), we had left the ghetto blaster, an important component of the dramas we had selected for today, in the trunk of my car.
My sister, Alison, and her boyfriend, Richard, were attending the Montreal CPC while taking courses at McGill University. They had invited our church, the Toronto CPC, to send its English Choir and Street Drama Team to visit and encourage the Montreal congregation. About 20 of us had packed into four cars and driven the five hours to Montreal with unquenchable enthusiasm, not the least dampened by the breakdown of one of the cars on the way. We simply packed ourselves in tighter in three cars, and arrived safely with little time lost.
Now we stood outside in the snowy, icy street, due to perform in 30 minutes, yet unable to retrieve our ghetto blaster because the lock was frozen. I pushed the key in again, and applied every trick I knew — again, unsuccessfully.
What were we going to do? We had to get our ghetto blaster out. We were here to do something we believed God had called us to do, and a frozen trunk lock mustn’t stop God! Faith and determination stirred together inside me, and I turned to the others.
“Let’s pray,” I said abruptly.
In a small circle on the street, the three of us bowed our heads.
“Father, our ghetto blaster is in that trunk, and we need it for the dramas we’re doing today. Will you please help us open that trunk?” I prayed.
We opened our eyes, and turned back toward the car. Linda half expected one of the fellows to come along with a crowbar, but none appeared. I inserted the key into the trunk lock again and gave it a turn. Smooth as melted butter, the key went in cleanly, turned easily, and the trunk popped open!
“Wow!” we said, staring into the open trunk.