I mentioned that we are stuck on the crazy wheel and can't seem to step off, right?
I wrote yesterday how I was finding some comfort in God's immeasurable power. Later in the day I was informed that the sheriff had found the "crazy" who had taken my husband's car for a little joy ride, used his credit card for personal purchases (conveniently left in the console by my ever so kind husband), and then spent the last three weeks introducing us to a whole new vocabulary by way of repeated phone calls.
Having been through this, we're still curious: If someone claims that they are going to "F" you up, is that a colloquialism or threat of bodily harm? Yeah, we are still a little confused too.
One assumes that if they are a law-abiding citizen minding their own business and just stay on the up and up that they are not going to have things like this happen to them. You know, most trouble comes to people who came by it honestly. Or you're watching TV and have a strong ability to suspend your disbelief. Consequently, you're never really prepared for so much drama in your everyday life.
This drama has been like walking into a spider web on a dark night–we just can't get it off us. We've stopped sleeping well. We've started praying more. A heaviness has wormed its way into our attempts to just go on like normal. Come on, we have four dogs.
Even though we knew they would do their best to keep us safe, it felt good last night going to bed knowing that there was bail between us and our crazy.
I was really looking forward to the freshness of a new start this morning. There is something so liberating about closure. Imagine my surprise to step out of the shower to the whirring of a police helicopter, loud speakers ordering me to stay in my house, and four ferociously barking dogs. (They were doing their best.) It's hard to find the right words to explain how quickly terror seized me.
I called the sheriff's department: There's a man on your property. Stay in your house.
I called again to get more info. And again. And again.
Then they asked me to stop calling, you know, so they could do their job. Well, it sounded more like a command, but you get the idea.
So I sat in my house like the first of the three little pigs ready at any moment for it all to fall down. I could hear the chopper…and the feet running outside…and the shouting. But I couldn't see anything. The only thing I knew was that I felt so helpless. I texted a friend: "Remind me to never ever ever write about God's power in helpless places." Because you know, it's going to be like giving a mouse a cookie. He will want to give you an experience to go with it.
In my fear, I was rethinking everything. Suddenly I didn't want to be a pacifist anymore. I need to teach my dogs to shoot a gun. I'm wondering why we ever stopped building moats around our houses. Why don't Basset Hounds have real legs? And sharper teeth?
Then my son texts me tell me he thinks he left his bedroom window open and I wonder why I ever had children. Immediately I wonder what I did wrong as a mother. How did I fail so? But then I'm flooded by gratitude that at least for today, he is not the one being chased by our local law enforcement.
As I'm crouched against the front door (because in the moment this seemed the best place from which to make a run for it in the event someone came out of said son's room) and one basset is sleeping and the other has jumped up on the chair to bark at whatever mayhem is going on in my front yard, I pray and I search my memory rolodex for some comforting word. I can only remember three words: Faith, Hope, and Love.
Really? That's it? Faith, hope and love, nothing more, Lord? This isn't a kitschy song–this is my life. How about a booming voice that says, "EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY"??? Because right now everything feels like crazy, crazy, crazy.
"And for every crazy the world gives you, I give three assurances: Faith to remember I will see you through this. Hope because I won't disappoint. And love, yes, love because the greatest of these is My love. Right here, right now, I love you." That little whisper in my thoughts was louder than anything crazy had to say.
Somehow Love set crazy straight. Then the chopper left. The voices and the boots in the front yard walked away. The dog fell asleep in the chair.
This entry was posted in Faith, Life Unmasked, Love and tagged fear by Brenda Chance. Bookmark the permalink.