It was a few years ago and I was on my way home from a family get-together. It was late, and since my husband had shown up after work he had his own car. Our daughter as usual chose to ride with her dad. So there I was driving behind them on a country road near our home when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I’m always on the look out for deer so of course that was my first thought and so I slowed the car down.
Suddenly there was a man – a harried, agitated, almost crazed man – who tried to grab both the door handle and side mirror. It scared the daylights out of me. I sped up and watched in the rearview mirror as he chased my car. My husband was no longer in sight and all I could do was cry and keep driving.
Once he was out of sight, I finally decided to pray for the Lord to calm me and guide me home safely. As I prayed I felt a conviction that maybe I had jumped to conclusions, maybe he was in need of help.
The area he was in was mostly fields. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think that he may have been in his pajamas. My first reaction had been for my safety but maybe he was the one who had been in danger. I determined that once I got home I would call the police and tell them about the incident.
Fifteen minutes later I was standing in my kitchen telling my family my tale of woe. It was 2AM by that time and when I mentioned I felt I should call the police my husband said it might be better to wait until the morning. It was late and I was tired so I decided he was probably right and I headed off to bed.
In the morning, calling the police didn’t seem all that important. Things always seem scarier when it’s dark so really, maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal. Later that day as I drove to the grocery store I noticed an increase in police presence in the same area I had been through the night before. My heart sank as I thought about what may have occurred all because I hadn’t gotten involved. What if that man had harmed another woman who had been on that road the night before? I didn’t have the guts to stop and ask.
We lived in a small town at that time and the local newspaper was weekly, so it drove me nuts as the days passed and I heard nothing of what was going on. And believe me something was definitely going on; police, firefighters and volunteers were always in sight as I drove around town. At one point, I witnessed about 50 people walking hand-in-hand through a field as if searching for a body. As each day passed I felt worse about not being obedient to the conviction I had felt that night about calling the police. Yet, I couldn’t get myself to rectify the situation.
I was probably the first person to purchase the newspaper on Friday when it came out and sadly the front page story told me everything I needed to know.
My conviction had been from the Holy Spirit and I had been very disobedient.
I cried as I read of a young, mentally challenged man who had gone missing from his parent’s home in the middle of the night. It had been five days of thirty degree temperatures at night and his parent’s believed he was only wearing his pajamas. The general thought was he had probably died from hypothermia and now they were just trying to find the body so the parents could find closure.
I sat in my car and prayed.
Lord God, please don’t let this be true. Lord, you are in complete control and nothing, not even raising the dead, is too hard for you. Don’t let this family suffer because I neglected to obey you. Please, please don’t take him from his family, don’t let them suffer because of my stupidity. I will obey you from now on, Lord. With your help and guidance I will obey you…
I prayed without ceasing for another two days. After hearing a news story on TV about a young man who had, against all odds, survived a week of freezing temperatures by crawling into an old stump, I stopped praying to God and started praising Him instead.
