Plant a Seed

I was having a conversation with someone that I love dearly about a week ago  (last Wednesday morning to be exact) and he planted a seed of thought in my head that I’ve had to look at from several different angles.  But let me back track…

Wednesday October 31 was a DAY… I don’t personally celebrate Halloween but as a new member of my team at work I felt that my participation in our team costume would be a good idea.  So I got up that morning, prepared the children for school and with the help of my father got the kids loaded into the truck.  As my dad and I parted ways, I began to walk around to the drivers side of the truck when I noticed a young man, maybe 15 years old, looking around (suspiciously) and walking to the driver’s side door.  You see from his view this truck looked like an easy target sitting outside running with no one inside.  What he couldn’t see were my children in the back seat, me walking around or my dad who had just gone into the garage.  Not until I got around the back of the truck, so he turned and tried to walk away nonchalantly, but it was too late I saw him, I read the situation and knew exactly what would have happened if I’d taken another 3 seconds to be visible. 

If… that’s such a powerful word here.  What if, I’d crouched down to pick something up from the ground.  What if, I’d stood talking to my dad a little longer…. What if that young man (boy) had gotten into the truck and taken off on his “Joy Ride” with my kids in the car… What IF that had happened? 

The situation swirled in my head and I was filled with so much anger and disappointment toward this young man, then immediately FOR him.  That one choice could have changed the course of his life permanently.  Grand theft auto, turned into 2 counts of kidnapping with that one foolish choice.  It burned me up that he lacked the hope for the future that is necessary to keep our young people from making bad choices.  That keeps them choosing to walk to school instead of away from school, ditching, looking for foolish ways to fill that time.  This young man turned and walked away… in the opposite direction of the local High School.  

I thought about it, and I decided to inform him of something… so I pulled up along side him (he was after all walking the same direction as me with my drive), I rolled down the window and I shouted out “Young Man!... I just wanted you to know.  If you were thinking about getting in this truck, both of my kids are in here so that would be 2 kidnapping counts IMMEDIATELY.”  He stammered.  “No!  Why would you say that… I wasn’t even… why you say something like that?”  so I said again.  “I just wanted you to know!!”  and I pulled off. 

I hope it scared him.  I hope that he went to his friends house, changed shirts and looked over his should for the rest of the day.  More than that, I hope that he will think twice before making another one of those “feels good in the moment” choices that could potentially devastate his young life for years to come.   

MY Day Continued on though…. And I spoke with this dear friend during my commute….

I shared with him what had happened with the young man, the truck, the possibilities and the frustration.  We discussed more though, we talked about the marriage, the failure, the why… a gambit of different things.  And from this conversation a seed was planted that has caused me to look more closely at me.  To want to clean out my spiritual and emotional closets and be FREE from whatever could be binding me. 

TO BE CONTINUED!!!