If There's A Gun To Your Head, You Better Know God

I was talking to a friend the other day and our conversation brought this memory to the surface. It was more frightening than I could handle at the time and God forbid it to ever happen again. But it has some valuable "life lessons" that bears sharing.

I was 22 years old, eager and ready to find out what life had in store for me. I had recently formed a relationship with God, accepting that His son, Jesus, died for me. Life was fresh, clear, and guiltless for the first time in my life. I was high on life and nothing could shake that. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (II Corinthians 5:17) was my calling card, so to speak. This is still my "calling card" but life has had it's trials so therefore I feel I am more seasoned and sadly not as eager.

I was working at a Day-N-Nite store as a cashier/clerk in Hampton, AR. My shift was from 11 pm to 7 am. In retrospect, not a good shift for a young girl. Well, I said I was eager not wise. We had one night shift cop on duty but sadly to say he would cut out about 2 am and the dispatcher was supposed to call him if needed. He parked in the parking lot facing the store so I always knew when I was on my own. When you come from a smaller town you basically trust most situations, or at least you don't expect possible danger around the corner.

At approximately 2:10 a.m. a young man came in the store (he was 19 years old)  looked around and acted suspicious. I though he was stealing, so I geared up to face him down like I  had to do when I caught them stealing in the past. I would say, "I saw you, now put it back!" Funny thing, they always did. This was 26 years ago, though. I asked him if he needed help and he said no and left. Hmmm...

Thirty minutes later, four armed guys (all in their 20's) came bursting in the store one carrying a sawed off shotgun and the leader carried a pistol. I'm not sure if there were any other guns. The leader put the pistol to my head and made me go into the bathroom and lay on the floor. Yes, as much as I don't even like the memory let alone saying it. The intention (that was as far as it went) was the r word. Blah. Out loud I said "Please God help me" and the guy said "Shut UP! So I just started saying the name Jesus over and over with my eyes closed. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" All of a sudden one of the other guys pounded on the door and told him, "we need you out here, can't get the register open." He cussed, went out of the bathroom and had another guy guard the door from the outside. He left the door open about 2 inches wide and I saw the guy's silhouette within the door opening. There was yelling going on outside the door but it was backround noise to me, "Grab all the cigarettes! Come on, let's go! etc" My attention was captured by the absence of the "door guard's" silhoutte within the 2 inch door opening. Actually I remember seeing the back of his head, and in one split second he moved and the door looked clear. I gave no deep thought to what to do, I just acted on whatever came to me. I also recieved such a calmness within my soul. It felt like there was a steel wall in front of me guarding me, but I knew I had to get out of there fast. So, I jumped up and pulled the door shut and locked it, locking myself in this one toliet bathroom. Now what? I looked up and saw that the ceiling was the 2' x 2' tile/grid sytem (drop ceiling.) I jumped up on the toilet seat, stepped up to the top of the tank, then reaching the grid, pushed up a tile and started to pull myself up into the ceiling. Right then they banged on the door and screamed at me to tell them how to open the register. I told them the exact sequence and had to repeat it several times; all the while I was standing on top of  the toilet  aiming myself toward that ceiling. They left the door to try the sequence, yelling at each other, "come on get that blank open!" Those details all meshed together in my mind. When it sounded like they were all involved in that again...up I went. I was 120 lbs. You say that wouldn't hold a person...so I Googled it and here is what I found on there (you would be right):

I would expect 100-120 pounds to be too much for almost all installations. 20-30 pounds is easily possible on almost all if supported over several feet of the rail and not just hung from one or two of the grid clamps sold for the purpose of putting up signs or displays.(Google online 2012.)

So after I pulled myself up into the drop ceiling a few feet from the edge (I did balance on the metal grid at least), I laid down and pulled the pink itchy insulation over me in hopes that if they tried to come up after me maybe they wouldn't see me. I laid there,  heard them finding me gone, screaming 
that they were going to shoot up into the celing with the sawed off shotgun unless I came down. (Uh, yeah...right. I'll be right down!) I did lift my head and in a panic I almost tried to scamper around to find out how to get out of the bulding. My heart was racing. But the calmness enveloped me once again; I thought I better stay still. I heard them decide they better cut out seeing that their threats were not going to make me come down. I think they even thought I was gone. So they left, taking the whole cash register with them, and lots of cigarettes.

I didn't trust that they were gone, I kind of thought they were trying to trick me, so I laid there trying not to breathe very loud. This was all over by maybe 3:30 am, but I was going to stay up there until someone came to the door. I did lift up one of the panels so that I could see if anyone came in. Finally at 7 a.m. a man came in the store and I lifted up the panel and said, "Help, I've been robbed" He looked around a few times, and I repeated, "Help, I've been robbed!" He thought the pinball machines were making noise, but when I pushed my head through the ceiling further, he "got" it.

The rest was a blur, I don't know how I got down. I think the guy helped me after he called the cops.
I remember I had to wait for the investigators to come and question me. They asked me if I knew the guys who robbed the store, and I was dumbfounded! What? By then I wasn't calm, I was numb. So I just answered and went through whatever motions were needed. They told me to put rubbing alcohol on my arms to help remove the fiberglass and I refused because I was not itchy, it never made me itchy...

The robbers also stole my bible that I carried with me, it was in a zippered case. With my car keys. It's really neat, the cops searched for my bible and case. They actually found it a week later and I still have that one ( I use a different one) in my "stuff."

Another neat tidbit that came from this is about a month later I was at home and one of the Calhoun County police officers came to my door and they asked me if I would like a job at the Sheriff's Office as a dispatcher. I was out of a job, collecting unemployment. For some reason when I was asked if I would like to stay working  at the Day-n-Nite I just couldn't see myself going back to that job...(Sarcasm sign.) Anyway I took the job at the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office were I felt safe, and
kept that job for a little over a year before I moved back home. It was a great experience (the job, not the rob!)

The four robbers were caught, got something like 20 yrs and the lookout kid got 5 years (this part is all fuzzy) I know after 6 months the grandmother (she was a wonderful lady) and the church asked me to write a letter to help him get on early parole since he was not in on the robbery. But I just couldn't. It's not that I didn't forgive him, I just thought even if you played a part in a crime that could have left someone dead, then you have consequences to pay. At least I felt that the law should hand out any mercy that they felt fitting. I realize this is not always the case, but I just couldn't help.

A few years later that same store was robbed at gunpoint. The man that was the clerk was shot and killed.

So my Epiphany within this story is how I learned that overall God is clearly with me and if I listen to that still small voice inside, he will guide me. If I don't panic, I can hear His voice ready to guide me. As long as I keep myself from being clogged up from stress, anger, anyhing that overloads a person, I can rest assured that whatever comes, He will make a way out of it. No, you can't make life into a fairytale. But He can give us direction and what we need to survive. Sometimes overcoming and sometimes under duress.

 Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. Matthew 10:34 (NKJV)

Hildegarde's Trashcan

In 1971, someplace in New Jersey, there was this 8 yr old little girl who was afraid of her own shadow. She was skinny, and had a mop of frizzy hair that had a mind of it's own. It brought her so much attention that she shrank from being noticed anytime that she was in public. Now when she was at home, she was the proverbial wild child! Throwing rocks at her brothers or biting her sister (only when provoked or so it seemed to her) But in public places she was as timid as a mouse. Always being in a new school at least 2 or 3 times a year, the walls never became familier enough to notice anything but the cold bright white color on them.

Her main goal of everyday was to find each class, find her assigned seat and hope that nobody would notice her til it was time to return home to where life was codependently familiar. One day the bell rang between class and she had to make a trip to the restroom, just like many others. And just like many others, she had to wait for an open stall. As one door came open, out came a girl that looked like any other girl. She was most likely in her early teen years, with short brown hair and wore horn rimmed glasses. Most likely she would have been considered a "nerd" during that era. She was hugging her books and rushing out of the bathroom. As she was leaving the little girl stepped towards the stall and some other girls who were apparently "popular" said, in their screechy snobby voices, "ewww don't go in there! That's HILDEGARDE'S TRASHCAN!" The little girl was already stepping into the stall; fear made her not be able to change her course. She was so disturbed by this that she closed the door, waited for those snobbbies to leave, and then made a quick exit out of that bathroom, never to return to use the school bathroom during the school day again. She never understood what took place or why it disturbed her, but she was terrified  that stall would be dubbed with her name. She never forgot Hildegarde and occasionally through the years wondered what happened to her.

Fast forward 40 years...the whimpy, frizzy headed kid was me (duh) and this was a true snippet out of my memory. I don't remember anything else so clearly about that school except that it was somewhere in New Jersey. Even though I was terrified at the time that it would be dubbed as my "trashcan" I couldn't help but think about this poor Hildegarde. I wonder how much bullying that she had to go through. Did she rise above this torment or did she give in to the superior forces that tormented her? I looked up bullying on the online encyclepedia Wikipedia and found these disturbing facts:

The link between bullying and school violence has attracted increasing attention since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. That year, two shotgun-wielding students, both of whom had been identified as gifted and who had been bullied for years, killed 13 people, wounded 24, and then committed suicide. A year later an analysis by officials at the U.S. Secret Service of 37 premeditated school shootings found that bullying, which some of the shooters described "in terms that approached torment," played a major role in more than two-thirds of the attacks. It is estimated that about 60-80% of children are bullied at school. Since bullying is mostly ignored, it may provide an important clue in crowd behaviour and passer-by behaviour. Numerous psychologists have been puzzled by the inactivity of crowds in urban centres when crimes occur in crowded places. Many have suggested bullying as one of the reason of this decline in emotional sensitivity and acceptance of violence as normal. When someone is bullied, it is not only the bully and victim who are becoming less sensitive to violence. In most cases, the friends and classmates of the bully and the victim accept the violence as normal.(Wikipedia online 2011)

Some other disturbing facts taken from Wikipedia: 

Mona O’Moore of the Anti-Bullying Centre at Trinity College in Dublin, has written, "There is a growing body of research which indicates that individuals, whether child or adult, who are persistently subjected to abusive behavior are at risk of stress related illness which can sometimes lead to suicide."  Those who have been the targets of bullying can suffer from long term emotional and behavioral problems. Bullying can cause loneliness, depression, anxiety, lead to low self-esteem and increased susceptibility to illness. In the long term it can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and an inability to form relationships - even leading to celibacy. .(Wikipedia online 2011)

I looked into the "why people become bullies" and found this :


Research indicates that adults who bully have personalities that are authoritarian, combined with a strong need to control or dominate. It has also been suggested that a prejudicial view of subordinates can be a particularly strong risk factor. Some doctors have argued that a bully reflects the environment of his home, repeating the model he learned from his parents.
Further studies have shown that envy and resentment may be motives for bullying.  Research on the self-esteem of bullies has produced equivocal results.  While some bullies are arrogant and narcissistic,  others can use bullying as a tool to conceal shame or anxiety or to boost self esteem: by demeaning others, the abuser him/herself feels empowered.
Researchers have identified other risk factors such as depression and personality disorders, as well as quickness to anger and use of force, addiction to aggressive behaviors, mistaking others' actions as hostile, concern with preserving self image, and engaging in obsessive or rigid actions. .(Wikipedia online 2011)

As you most likely have guessed, I am not a writer per se. But I do like to communicate and writing this down is a good form to express myself on this (or any) subject. What I would like to do here in whatever small way I can, is to educate you on the effects of bullying. Even if it seems like an insignificant little musing from childhood. The small part that I played in this story was significant enough to last me 40+ years, I can only imagine the long term affects that it had on Hildegarde. So, you can imagine the torment that people go through from worse case scenarios.
Just remember, if you have thoughts that are "bullyish" in general, or if you are suffering at the hands of a bully, you cannot control what thoughts come INTO your mind. These are the "fiery darts" we've heard tale of. But you CAN control what thoughts you choose to dwell on. The dictionay defines to "dwell" as :
1. to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside.

2. to live or continue in a given condition or state: to dwell in happiness.

3. to linger over, emphasize, or ponder in thought, speech, or writing

 

In closing I would like to say to Hildegarde, wherever or whoever you turned out to be, you touched my life many years ago with your misfortune and now I lift you up in prayer asking for special blessings for your life.

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Inventory

This is the eve of Thanksgiving so I'm going to take a quick inventory of what I am thankful for. Sometimes we all lose sight of the simple things. If I don't have a million dollars, if I'm not perfectly beautiful, if I don't drive the coolest, or newest car, if I don't have the big beautiful home that I tend to lust for in that place I call my imagination, etc... then I often get a feeling like "someday my ship will come in." Leaving me always wanting more.  Ever been there? I come back to the place of physical habitation, look around, and know that things could be a whole heck of a lot worse! Actually, they have been.

Most of all  I thank God that I am here and have grown in wisdom, grace, forgiveness, and love. I could still be the sullen teenager who hated her alcoholic father. Instead I have since realized that he was a broken man who never could find or fulfill his destiny. So he went through the motions, drowning (and sometimes stirring up) his rage in alcohol;  forever searching for that unattainable peace. I am thankful that near the end of his life he did find his purpose and because of that he left his children a Christian legacy if we choose to receive it. There is just something about being forgiven yourself that opens you up to forgive others. When you do an amazing thing happens. For me, the pain and bitterness started to fade enabling a colorful ribbon of joy and peace to flutter out from the depths of my being. So the bad times became remembrances of bleak times, and the good became a banner that flies strong as forgiveness becomes a coveted priceless treasure. Therefore, now that joy can fill me up and overflow to others. This is not a lesson on HOW to forgive! I'm simply stating that I am THANKFUL that forgiveness has been the vehicle that has driven me to peace and paints my whole view on this canvas we normally call life."

I like this quote by Albert Barnes

 We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.

Without taking anything for granted, I am very thankful for my 4 children! They amaze me with their talents and creativity. They have an uncanny understanding of life that I have just been coming into the latter part of my 48 years! They are not rich, famous, or overachievers (darn! ha ha) but they are functional human beings and for that I am very thankful! Of course there are many more things in this life that I am thankful for, and we can all fill in our own blanks.

In my closing thoughts I want to say that I may not know you or maybe I do. I can truthfully say that I care about you and if we were face to face you would see the sincerity in my eyes. I hope by what I have shared  that you can reach deep and pull out your true reasons for being  thankful. You will be overtaken by a very cleansing feeling and that is something to be thankful for!

It's A Me Thing

Today is Sunday, a day of rest. I realize that it is just another day for most, but I tend to try to make it a day that has no plans. That way I fool myself into believing that it is my day of "rest." Then I am free to do whatever I feel like doing without having the stress of  time engagements. Does anybody else have to fool yourself? Sounds weird but it works for me!!

This is my first time to blog. I am on a self discovery journey and part of that is wanting to not be afraid of stating my opinions. I admire people who state their opinions not caring what people think. Well, I'm sure they care, but they are not afraid of the conflict that they might encounter. I hate conflict. I am a scaredy cat. Sometimes my beliefs are not tangent. I cannot open a book and tell you "HERE IT IS" in black and white. I cannot prove some of them, I just know what I have lived and learned. Some are issues of the heart. Like the big one...God. I know that he is real, nobody talked me into it, and NOBODY can talk me out of it. I'll get in to more of that later.

Anyway, I am going to use this forum to be open about what I know to be true and maybe someone will be able to find themselves here and there. I just don't want to waste my time here on this earth and not try to stand for something that may be helpful to someone else. God went through the trouble of putting breath into me, there must be a reason for it.

Besides being afraid to talk about my opinions because of conflict, I don't want people to think I'm stupid. HA HA! That is a real big one for me! One person's "stupid" is another person's genius! Ha. I'm not really smart, but I like to feel that way sometimes. I don't take myself that seriously most of the time.  It's kind of fun and lackadaisical. Easy to hide that way. But the whole purpose of this blog is to share about things that I see and feel are true. It's a ME thing. If I put myself down, it is probably just to get a laugh, I'm not hung up on feeling bad about myself. I'm functional and fairly happy! I'm going to have fun with this, and at times be serious. Sometimes I laugh and sometimes I cry. Together maybe we can walk this life stronger.