In Everything, Give Thanks

We have decided to make Mondays even better by making them "Mastermind Mondays" at our family auto repair shop in Denver. What does that mean? Well, let us start from the very beginning.

We changed our business name in 2008 because we changed from a mobile auto repair service to a full service auto repair shop in Denver. We chose Mastermind Enterprises for our business name for many different, amazing reasons. The most important of these reasons being that God is the Mastermind of our universe and Norm has been given a remarkable gift from God - he is a mastermind with cars. Enterprises simply means company. Essentially, we are God's company blessed with talent for serving others by taking care of their auto repair service needs in Denver.

We have heard amazing compliments from, "You made me so happy that I cried." to "You are the best mechanic I ever had” to “it's like driving a new car." It's a blessing to use our talents to honor God. We realize that we have more to share with others than just an auto repair service. We have the love of God to share with everyone who comes to our family business.

Recently, we put up something new on the walls in our office. It says, "In everything, give thanks. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18" It is a great reminder to us at our shop everyday - for the difficult days and for the easy days.
God is ALWAYS with us. 

It's easy for us to give thanks when everything is going our way, our family is healthy and happy, our car is running smoothly, we have a job, and life is going according to plan. We can give thanks for good things like these most days. But giving thanks for things when life gets rough? This doesn't always come so easy. We get so distracted by trying to figure out the problems ourselves that we forget to turn to the one who can help us figure it out the best way.

Do you give thanks for pain, disappointments, losing a loved one unexpectedly, a check engine light coming on, the car not shifting smoothly, worrying about enough money to make ends meet? In moments like these, we can be thankful we are still alive to feel the pain and disappointments, that we have a car to have problems with, and a great mechanic to help us take care of those pesky car problems! We may not always get the answers we want to hear, but God knows. He knows everything and will work all things for good when we trust in Him and give Him thanks.

Be joyful always; pray continually;

give thanks in all circumstances, 

for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 

~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

It may even feel at times that you have nothing to feel thankful for. How do you give thanks in everything? For everything? Give yourself time to feel thankful. A great healer of all wounds is time. It may be painful now, but joy will come again. You may not be able to even think about it now, but if you experience your feelings today, not judging yourself for being less thankful than you should be, then you will be able to see God's Hand in everything in your life. This will start to change how you feel. We've been there, too. One day you will discover yourself giving thanks for the same things that were the most difficult experiences of your life. This is a mystery that only God can speak to you directly about in your heart. What you resist today, you welcome back to you tomorrow.

With Thanksgiving upon us, we instinctively give thanks for everything out of habit. But we don't have to. We can give thanks because we WANT to or not give thanks because we don't want to. God knows our hearts. He knows where we are at with the mountains and valleys we are experiencing in our lives. Knowing God loves us through it all is enough to make you feel just a little more thankful. Isn't it? Think of it as the first step to feeling thankful for everything.

We can do this by praying continually and being joyful always. We can always rejoice because we know what is true about God and His plan for our lives, so we can be thankful in all circumstances. When we know God is working all things for good, we can be joyful, no matter what our situation is. We can pray about His merciful and gracious plans in our daily lives for our spiritual and physical needs. We can give thanks in everything that comes along in our life, even if it's something that we aren't happy about or is unpleasant.

It's not always easy for us to be thankful when running our auto repair shop. Some days it seems like everything is going "wrong" - we get the wrong parts and have to re-order them over AND over again, we have a misunderstanding with a customer or we can't help someone because the part is unavailable. Everything that happens in our life happens for a reason and helps us to spread God's grace in a generous way. We have gotten wrong parts because we were able to find a better option for our customer with just one more phone call to the last possible vendor that could possibly carry the specific part that we need. Our customer gets to know their car better because we have to take a little more time to explain things to help them understand what is going on with their car and what needs to be fixed and why. When you have problems that cause you worry, like that pesky check engine light that you don't have time to take care of until next week, just start praying about it, and be thankful. God will work it all out.

We operate our family auto repair shop with thankfulness for our customers. One of the ways we do this is by giving 1 hour of free diagnosis to our customers when they fix their car at our auto repair shop. This is our way of saying "Thank you for doing business with us!" We are thankful for each of customers because without them, we wouldn't be here.

We are blessed to serve others and help you be safe on the road. We are thankful for our vendors who serve us by bringing us the parts we need to take care of our customers. We are thankful for the kindheartedness of people towards our children when they visit our shop. Thank you for letting our family serve your family's auto repair service needs in Denver!

We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving 

surrounded by your family and friends! 

Blessings from our family to yours!