Here I am with my first company issued semi-truck.
A few years ago, I was working for Werner as an over-the-road truck driver. This meant I could be sent to deliver items with my truck anywhere across the United States, and I lived in said truck for months at a time.
The truck driving field is a tricky one, because while it tends to pay well, there are a lot of companies which treat their employees like they are just tools to be used and not like human beings.
When I first accepted the job, I had been told that I would have a route which would allow me to be home with my family every weekend. My dad had recently passed away, so the ability to be home often with my mom during that time was imperative in my decision to take the job. They had, as it turns out, lied to me, and I ended up being away from home for around three months at a time.
Here I am learning to drive manual in a semi-truck in Millington, Tennessee.
Unfortunately, by the time I realized they had lied to me about my route, they already had me trapped financially. In order to get a Commercial Driver’s License I had had to attend a trucking school in Millington, Tennessee. They lured me down there by saying that the trucking school would be completely paid for by Werner, but once I was there, they revealed that I would have to take out a loan for $7,000 in order to pay for the three week school. Then if Werner decided to actually hire me, they would make my loan payments every month for as long as I worked for them. Honestly, that’s an okay deal, if they had been upfront about it. But they hadn’t.
Long story short, I ended up trapped working for them by a $7,000 loan. I tried to make the best of it. I had met another girl, Laura Powers, during training in Los Angeles, California who had asked me if I’d be willing to team drive with her. So, I called her up and we started out our venture as close-quarters roommates and co-workers.
Laura was great, we got along really well and had a lot of fun times together. The only problem was, no matter how hard I tried, I could not handle the stress of the job and of feeling like I was abandoning my family. Things got so bad for me emotionally that I could no longer eat anything without instantly having to rush to the bathroom, which is the last thing anyone wants to happen while driving a 16-wheeler down a five-lane interstate.
I vividly remember one specific moment when I was at my wit’s end. I was driving south in Florida, towards Orlando. I wanted to quit my job right then and there, but I had no idea how I would get home or pay off my loans if I did. So, I did what I should've done sooner, I turned to God for help.
“Desperate Prayer” by livin_4_jesus
I prayed, “Daddy God, I’ve gotten myself into a major bind here. I do not think I can physically continue with this job. But I don’t want to be financially irresponsible and end up with a mountain of debt I can’t pay off. My emotions tell me I should quit and go home. My logic tells me I need to stick it out at least until my debt is paid off. I need you to decide for me. If you want me to quit then find a way to get me home to do so; if you don’t want me to quit then please heal my mind and body so I can physically continue this job. In Jesus name, Amen.”
A photo I took when I realized I was going to work over Christmas.
A few weeks later, Christmas was right around the corner and Laura and I knew neither of us were going to be able to be home for Christmas. There was no way our dispatchers would allow it to happen. We had learned pretty quickly that the dispatchers liked to promise they would get us to certain places to keep us compliant, but then yank it away from us at the last minute and send us to the other side of the country.
Our route over Christmas was taking us from North Carolina to Salt Lake City, Utah. It just so happened that I was driving on Christmas day through Nebraska on I-80 heading west. It was a windy and stormy day so I had to take it slower than usual. Then the strange and abnormal (for winter in Nebraska) happened, I had just passed Grand Island when our cell phones blared out an Emergency Alert. A tornado had touched down a few miles away from us.
Chevy- my co-driver’s dog
I woke Laura up and had her get her leash on Chevy--her husky dog who rode along with us--as I pulled over into the truck stop by Wood River. After I parked the truck, the three of us hurried into the truck stop to take shelter.
We had a blast that night, hanging out with the truck stop employees and the few other truck drivers who were stuck there waiting out the winds. The tornado didn’t end up coming our direction so the next day we started our trek west again. We were nearly to Ogallala before we were informed that I-80 in Wyoming was closed to all traffic due to high winds and they estimated the closure to last three days.
Laura and I had a choice, we could wait the three days out, being buffeted around by the wind in our semi-cab, or we could head a little farther west and just a tad bit north, and wait out the weather with my family at my mom’s house. We chose the second option.
So, I wasn’t home for Christmas that year, but I was home for the day after Christmas. I was so thrilled to see my family, that I was feeling a lot better psychologically, at first, but then I was hit with an emotional bomb. I found out that the guy I was seeing was already married, had at least one other “official” girlfriend, and had a one-night-stand in Chicago, who was pregnant with his baby. (He was also an over-the-road truck driver so that’s how he pulled off this horrific trickery--just keeping us all in different locations.)
Everything he had ever said to me kept spinning around in my head, because none of it matched up with the reality I was now facing. I felt like a fool. I hated that he had turned me into the “other woman”. I was so angry and heartbroken I couldn’t stop crying. What was left of my fragmented psychological state shattered to pieces.
In that moment, I knew without a doubt that there was no way I could continue putting up with dispatchers whose starting place of communication was yelling obscenities; or with feeling like my life was moving on without me while I was just rolling down interstate after interstate. I was lost and broken, both emotionally and physically.
That’s when it hit me--I was home. At the precise moment where I had absolutely nothing left to give to over-the-road trucking, God had gotten me home. I talked to Laura and she insisted that she and Chevy could manage on their own. So I unloaded my stuff from the truck and I quit my job.
Shortly after, I was hired to drive sugar-hauling trucks for a local company, which allowed me to be home every day. Then a few weeks later, I got a notice that Werner was being sued for their dishonest practices, and I was able to make a deal with the bank to pay them $1,900 instead of the full $7,000 and have my debt wiped clean.
That day in Florida when I had prayed for help, I hadn’t been able to see a clear path to regaining my financial freedom or to getting back home, but God had already laid the path out before me. I’ll definitely never forget the time that God answered my prayers with a Christmas tornado.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
- Romans 8:28 (NIV)
This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”