peace

Tonight on my way home from a church meeting, the kids at home with an older friend, I was sitting at a red light when an SUV charged into me from behind. I was hit so hard that even while holding down the brake, I crashed into the car sitting six feet in front of me. 

I jumped out and ran to the car of the woman who crashed into me...she was ok.

Then I ran to the car in front of me to check on that driver, and a young woman flew out claws out, cussing, screaming, wailing and yelling over and over, "you're gonna get yourself SHOT," first to me, and then charging for the woman behind me, continually screaming about how she was going to get shot for this lots-and-lots-of-explicitives. 

I stood in the middle and kept speaking calmly to her like I do to Ben when he's losing his mind over a granola bar that broke off in his hand, because man alive, I didn't know WHAT else to to do. I finally convinced everyone to relocate to the near-by gas station.  By now, especially with so many death threats and gun references made and the woman in front trying to attack the woman behind (especially in a place where a LOT of people...almost all people...carry), countless people had called the police.  

I've been through a lot of drama, but I've NEVER had someone scream in my face that they were going to kill me. Nor have I ever stood between two women threatening to kill one another.

The woman in front of me, when she learned that the police would be there any minute, jumped in her car still screaming and peeled out, and quickly a bystander rushed over with her license plate number and encouraged me to move my car to a different location before the woman returned with a gun or backup.

It takes about 25 minutes to get through a drive-through in Mississippi (I am not even kidding, dear Magnolia State), so I was concerned about the kids at home and waiting here and the first woman I was waiting with...guessing the police would take at LEAST that long.

My check said to stay put, and thankfully, IN a place where everyone carries, apparently the police are much faster than McDonalds, and not 10 minutes later Officer Peace showed up.

I'm not even kidding..."PEACE".

As soon as I saw his badge, as soon as he began to unravel the mess, the Lord reminded me of those shoes of peace that are mine, wherever I go.  

Even with death threats. Even when it turned out the woman who hit me had no insurance. 

The kiddos were not with me, which is simply never the case, and while I accidentally in a panic called the wrong Matt (the right Matt being several hours away, anyway), our neighbor down the street was ready to come if Officer Peace hadn't. 

These unsettling days in Haiti have had me laid up at night, but He reminded me tonight that He has peace for us in situations for which there is NO understanding....that He sends us Peace in times that there is no expecting it. 

It's a broken broken world with broken broken people who cannot handle a fender bender, much less an assassination.

Nor would I, without His grace.  And because of that grace, I can have grace for all that broken.

I'm praying mighty peace anew on those couple people in my life that I just don't know HOW to help, in such heart-heavy places. 

There's nothing I can do to change the situation but remember, as He reminded me today, that HE IS IN THEM.  He's IN these broken places, there is such grace to be found, and HE is what is needed.