The Chevy Show Testimony

It was the hot, humid, month of July 1990 in Marietta, GA. The DOTCOM movement was in full swing. Home mortgage rates, which had been at an all-time high, were now 14%. My wife Reva and I were expecting our 5^th child in August. The moms reading this know how uncomfortable you feel in your 9^th month of pregnancy when it is nearly 100 degrees and humid. Fortunately, Brookcliff, the quiet, friendly neighborhood we had been living in for the past three years, had a pool! We loved living in Brookcliff. All of our children had good friends that lived there. I had a good job that I enjoyed. Reva was a stay-at-home mom, which she loved. Life was good!

We purchased our home in 1987 through a realty company that was also a mortgage company. Because they handled both transactions, they were able to offer us a 12% interest rate. We couldn’t have been happier with the experience. What we didn’t know was that the owners of the realty and mortgage company were committing mortgage fraud.

We didn’t find this out until we received a certified letter from a Federal Bankruptcy Trustee representing the previous owners of our house. The letter informed us that these owners had filed for bankruptcy. Our house was sold at auction to pay their debts. It was now the property of the bank that held their mortgage. The letter was a court order saying that we had 30 days to vacate the premises.

WHAT??? I called the trustee and said there must be some mistake. We had bought the home three years before from the previous owners and had been making payments on time ever since. The trustee informed me that the realty/mortgage company had committed fraud at the closing because when they financed the home, they didn’t pay off the underlying mortgage, which had a 7% interest rate. The house stayed in the previous owner’s name. The mortgage company made the previous owner’s house payments at the lower interest rate and financed the difference between the purchase price and the pre-existing loan. The house was never in our name, even though the closing papers said it was in our name.

I called the bank that now owned our home and asked if we could refinance the house with them and stay. They declined because the purchase transaction with our realty/mortgage company was now part of a statewide fraud case affecting dozens of families like ours and involving the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. We lost all our equity, so we didn’t have money for a down payment on another house. We did have to pack up and move out. The trustee gave us an extension on the move-out deadline because Reva was so close to term with her pregnancy. Because this was not our first crisis, we knew who to turn to and what to do. We turned to the Lord our God, we prayed to Jesus, and we waited.

We were active members of our church and the Sunday school class we attended. That Sunday, we asked the class to pray for us for wisdom about where we were going to move and for God’s favor in getting this done. They prayed beautiful prayers over us, and we were greatly encouraged. After the class ended, one of the families came to us and said that they had bought tickets for their family to go to the Six Flags over Georgia Amusement Park that day. They asked us to accept the gift of their tickets, and they said for us to take our family to Six Flags, get our minds off of our crisis, and listen for God’s voice while they stayed home to pray for us! We were filled with joy and gratitude by their kindness and thoughtfulness. We will be forever grateful to God, and them, for what happened that day!

Reva’s sister Ruth and her husband Pat were the ones who gave us the tickets to go to Six Flags that day. God put this on their hearts, knowing what He had planned for us when we got there. Their children were very disappointed as you can imagine. It was their sacrificial love for God, and us, that moved their hearts to do this. Without their obedience to God’s prompting, we wouldn’t have this testimony.

We all hopped in the station wagon and headed to Six Flags! Our kids were ages 6, 8, 10, and 12! It was an overcast day, so the park wasn’t too hot or too busy, which was awesome! We went on lots of rides designed for younger children. No roller coasters or freefalls! We especially liked the indoor, air-conditioned attractions. We were having fun! By God’s Grace and the prayers of faithful friends, our minds were set free from our crisis to focus on our blessings!

There was an attraction there that we hadn’t been to before called the “Chevy Show.” It was an old-school 3D theatre. The screen was shaped like a half-circle awning. All of the seats were benches. The screen was positioned so that it wrapped around and over the top of all the benches. When you were seated, you were inside the screen. Then the film started. It felt like you were really in the movie! We started the climb to the top of “The Scream Machine” roller coaster. The sights and sounds were amazingly realistic! Then we reached the top and began screaming down the first of many terrifying summits. You could feel the butterflies in your stomach like it was real!

The next scene was on an airplane, but not as a passenger. You were standing on the top wing of a bi-plane and flying under bridges!  My knuckles were now turning white from the grip I had on the bench I was sitting on! People were screaming in terror! In the next scene, you were riding a motorcycle on a steep, winding, mountain trail with no guard rails. The wheels of the motorcycle were flinging rocks off the edge of the cliff you almost slid over. You were approaching a paved road intersection now, going too fast to stop. There came a tractor-trailer! Too late! You had to slide under it and duck your head!!

Then, during this visual chaos, I felt I was getting a message from the Lord. “Don’t look at the screen; look at the people!” So, I immediately disconnected from the movie that had wrapped us in fear and began to look around the room. People were in distress! Men, women, and children were holding their breath or screaming, children crying, hoping the movie would stop soon so they can “get off, they were so frightened. A moment before, I was one of them. But now, my anxiety was gone. I was looking at the people instead of the screen. I realized that what everyone in the room was afraid of was an illusion. We weren’t in any danger at all!  But the illusion seemed so real that it convinced us that we were in terrible danger.

Then this message came; “This is the way your enemy, Satan, lies to you about the circumstances of life. He tries to terrify you, anger you, discourage you and condemn you. Satan tries to make your life circumstances seem overwhelming and impossible to overcome. He wants you to feel helpless, hopeless, guilty, abandoned, worthless, unloved, undesirable, stupid, and doomed. He does this to get you so bogged down with anxiety over his lies that you take your eyes off of Me, the Lord your God, Father, Spirit, and Son, to focus on the chaos! When you take your eyes off of Me, you lose sight of the truth.  The truth is, I have you in the palm of my hand, you are my child, and I love you!

With that, the Chevy Show was over. Reva and I gathered the kids up, went home, had dinner, and began looking for a place to move. Our circumstances hadn’t changed, but our focus did change, and our anxiety was gone. It didn’t take long for us to find our next home. It was only 1 mile away from home in Brookcliff. Our children were able to maintain their relationships with their friends. None of them had to change schools. The homeowners were an engineer and his wife, who was a Lutheran pastor. We shared our story with them, and they decided they wanted us to have the house. They financed the home for us at a fair interest rate. We were able to move in within the timeframe we were allowed by the bankruptcy court, and it was our home for the next 15 years.

We had many other crazy times in our lives where it looked like chaos was about to erupt. When that happened, we would remind each other about The Chevy Show. “That’s just The Chevy Show” became an Austin Family response to crisis and chaos. Nearly every time, it was. The thing we were concerned about either never happened, was much less of an issue than we thought, or God provided a solution.

Then there are the times when the thing we feared did happen. What then? God was with us, giving us hope, comforting us and suffering with us, helping us carry the burden, and strengthening us, so we could endure the pain and bring us through it. We determined that we really can’t tell very much about the future by looking at our circumstances, because that doesn’t take into account God’s grace, compassion, provision, and sovereignty.

Jesus said (John 16:33 ESV):

“…In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

We have seen God move in our lives and many other people’s lives in miraculous ways, time and time again to save us from our storms, or to bring us through the storms of life in victory. He will do it for you too! It is time to stop looking at the circumstances of life as if they had any power over us.

God is in control.