It was a Tuesday, April 21, 1987. I’d been to early prayer at church and shuttled all the kids to school. Since I had a short breather before a doctor’s appointment – just a regular checkup – a nap seemed most appropriate.
It was that good kind of sleep that only happens when it’s unplanned, unfettered by a nagging agenda and undisturbed because there is no one in the house. Good sleep. But I had to be up by 11.
Suddenly as I drifted on whatever cloud was passing by, a bang happened on the front door. The kind of bang that’s sounded by those huge heavy posts police carry to smash in doors. It startled me, woke me up. But I was not disturbed. Actually I was glad to have been awakened. It was the perfect time to to get up and make my appointment.
Everything went fine at the appointment and I returned home to begin afternoon chores before the Mommy taxi went into full speed.
When I went into the house nothing caught my attention.
But as I entered the kitchen my eyes fell on the back door. It was open. Not ajar. But fully open. Not only that. The top of the door was actually missing. I know it was an old house and that everything was a little tender. But really. The top of the door was gone.
It could have been a scene from one of those old Japanese movies where Chovan opens his huge mouth and bites off the top of a door. Or grabs it with his huge hand and rips off the top. Unbelievable.
So I went upstairs to check. I know I shouldn’t have but in that moment fear didn’t register. So I went upstairs only to find that whoever had come in had helped him or herself to everything that posed as electronics- televisions, VCRs, radios, etc. One of the VCRs had been borrowed from my sister-in-law.
Police reports finished and aside, I realized that the Lord had gotten me out of that house. The loud knock on the front had been the intruder’s way of checking to see if anyone was home. It gave me a way of escape that probably saved my life. One can only imagine the outcome if drug influenced robbers had come into the house to find me asleep upstairs. And thankfully, I’ll never know.
What I do know is that it was yet another extraordinary moment of grace that always elicits boundless gratitude for my Maker.
