Our car (we call her Debbie) that had been parked on the street had been hit and hit so hard it pushed her into the neighbor's mailbox that is cased in brick and filled with concrete (because it had been hit twice before.) The mailbox was pushed a few feet and tipped over (it weighed 980 lbs.) and our car was sitting in the street 100 feet from where we had parked it. The street and sidewalk and car were a mess. There were pieces and parts laying all over the street, including the license plate of the truck that hit the car and drove off. The police came and did a report and took pictures, mind you this is all going on at 3am. Charlie parked our Debbie car back in her spot and the police left.
Anyone who knows my man knows he is a finisher, he got out of the car and just started following the trail of
The pickup was only a few houses away, parked in a driveway. Charlie called the same police back to let him know he found the vehicle. The police came back and thru a series of unfortunate events, the dad of the guys that hit our car was arrested.
Charlie had to leave that morning just a few short, very short, hours after he got back in bed.
As I walked into the church that morning, I felt on edge and unnerved - the adrenaline wouldn't level out. As soon as worship started I felt the love and correction of my Heavenly Father come over me. We had just finished a series at church on "loving your neighbor" and right along with loving our neighbor is the Scripture about loving and praying for our enemies.
So whether you categorize the man who hit our car as a neighbor or an enemy, I hadn't done one thing the Bible teaches me to do:
Matthew 5:43-44 New Living Translation (NLT)
43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
Ugh!!!! The beautiful part about the Christian life is, it's never too late to turn to Jesus. I stood right there in worship and repented of my sin and acknowledged that the guy who hit our car, and his dad, were having a much worse day than I was, and I just prayed that God would show up for them in whatever way they needed. This is one of the greatest benefits of following Jesus - I didn't have to fix one thing, I only had to let the Lord fix my heart and He is trustworthy to fix who needs fixing and heal and help "whosoever" believes in Him.
PS. For those of you who have read my blog for a long time.....you may remember this happened to another car of ours in Billings a few years ago. Click HERE for the blog post from a few years ago.
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