I'll Take My Holiday Weekends Boring and Uneventful, Thank You- Part 3, This Weekend, The End

I should have known that our address would earn a spot on the police blotter this weekend.

My husband was going to be doing some painting and projects over the weekend. (I'm sure the plan stemmed from my choice of cabinet handles one way or another.) So, to get us out of the way, I travelled with all of the children to my parent's house for a long weekend. Somehow there's just something about this scenario, especially when one of us is out of town, that invites "action". It's been the trend.

The last time one of us had taken kids down to my parents' like this, of course, was Memorial Day 2006. During our summer weekends, our family has encountered burglary and massive identity theft, an intruder in the house, an armed robber thought to be hiding in our little yard, a car crash in front of the house, a car somehow flipping onto its roof in our 25mph street, two men aggressively banging on the door at night asking for "bus money" (husband out of town, of course), and a neighbor pulling a gun during an argument as our family saw it all from very nearby on our back porch. Oh, and two floods, one while my husband was out of town for the weekend. (Did you know that appliances float?)

I am at least happy that I was the one to miss the action this weekend.

After a long day of working on projects Saturday, around 11:30pm my husband finished up, pulled the shades, and locked up. As he trudged upstairs to take a long, hot shower, he thought he heard some arguing outside in the front. He took a quick look through the peep hole in the door, but couldn't see anything, and continued up to the shower. Afterwards he came back downstairs to relax and watch TV. It was as he was sitting there in a tired haze that he became aware of the loud, rattling hum of many idling vehicles coming from the front of the house.

His initial peek through the peep hole revealed a glaring array of lights. He opened the door to find a host of police cars and ambulances immediately in front of our house, just steps off of our porch. He could see a woman in the ambulance and a man and boy standing a little way off, but he couldn't tell in the dark who they were.

Turning back into the house, he then noticed small lights and movement through one of the windows in the back of the house. He opened the back door to find our little yard crawling with police who were searching everywhere with flashlights. He switched on an exterior light for them, and asked what they were searching for. A gun, they said.

He went back to the front and stepped outside. Getting closer to the man and boy, he could see that it was a D, a 7 year old boy from up the street who comes over to play nearly every day, and his father. They told him that D's mom, Miss L, was the woman in the ambulance, and filled him in on what they knew.

Miss L had been riding the bus home from work when two girls in their late teens who were very drunk began harassing her. It was an aggressive verbal assault, and Miss L did talk back to them. The bus driver kicked the girls off of the bus, letting them off at the stop that is just steps from our front door. This was Miss L's stop, too,but she wisely decided to stay on the bus and let the bus driver loop her around to the grocery store stop. It would be a farther walk for her, but she figured that by the time she got back to the place she needed to get off, they would be gone.

They were not. They recognized her immediately, and started screaming at her. She tried to move to the other side of the street, but they came after her. Knowing that she wouldn't make it all the way down the block to her house, she sprinted through our neighbor's back yard to try to get into our back door for help. My husband did not hear all of the commotion as he was in the shower.

They started beating her with the handle of an umbrella and their fists. Then, one of the girls yelled at the other, "Just get the gun out of your purse, and shoot the *****! Just shoot her!"

I have to mention here that the very reason Miss L moved her family to our neighborhood a few years ago was that she had been shot in a drive-by and severely wounded in the shoulder in her old neighborhood. She thought our neighborhood would be safer for her family.

So, even more understandably than for anyone else, when she saw the one girl reach toward her purse, she went after her with full fury, pinning her between our steps and fence. The girl bit her severely, and the other continued to beat and kick her. Mercifully, someone had heard the screaming when it started, and called the police right away. They showed up then and, eventually, caught the girls.

Miss L needed stitches in her head, lip and arm, and was quite bruised, but she had no concussion or further injury. D and his father had no way to get to the hospital or bring Miss L home when she was done, so my husband took them. It was 5:30 in the morning by the time they all came home. Miss L is recovering, but angry.

I don't mean to glorify this kind of "action" by telling the stories. But life carries these kinds of danger. With the exception of extremes, it really doesn't matter who you are or where you live.
I don't know why, in addition to the violence that touches our city and church congregation, God has been allowing us so many direct brushes with this kind of action. I do know that there is purpose in what God allows, that he is faithful to us, and that, for right now, we are where we are supposed to be. That is enough.

I've heard it said that the safest place in the world is right in the center of God's will for you, be it a war zone or a convent. I've heard it stated that a believer walking in God's path for his life is immortal until the work God has for him is done. That's good enough for me. I'm not afraid.