Blogable moments

Over the past several weeks I have experienced several “blogable moments”, and yet I had nowhere to enter these thoughts because my other blog site has been down. Here are a couple of things that stand out in my mind:

I had recently been putting off giving some money to a worthy cause. I sensed God prompting me to send a certain charity some money. Not a ton, but I can’t afford much of anything right now. But I decided to send it any way, even if I might get dangerously close to bottom in my bank account.

I don’t remember the timeline exactly, but shortly after that I came out to my car after church one Sunday afternoon (this was two weeks ago) and found an envelope on the steering wheel column. Inside was a nice note of appreciation, and $100 in cash! I was very surprised and blessed to receive such generosity. The note was anonymous. It allowed me a much nicer cushion in my account, and the needed funds to pay for a tuxedo I’m going to wear in a friends wedding. God is good at providing.

There is a little girl in my church, her name is Natalie. She is nearly two I think, and quite cute. She and I have become friends and she enjoys sitting on my lap when I go over to her families house for dinner, or to watch a movie. (The Rouse House.) She’s even started giving me hugs upon request. (Even though I request a kiss, she gives me a hug instead.) She’s got a nasty side too, but she’s been very sweet with me so far. I enjoy playing with her because it satisfies my “big brother” urges. I am the oldest of ten children you see, and so being a big brother is a major part of my life, even though I don’t really live at home much any more.

The other night she did the cutest thing. She’d hand me a gun looking thing, and when I would point at her and go “Bang!” she would fall down on the ground, spread eagle, and stare blankly at the ceiling, playing dead. But then the final kicker was that she would stick her tongue out! So imagine a cute, blonde, curly haired little girl lying flat on her back with a blank, very dead looking, stare and her tongue pointing up! It was hilarious, and she did it every time! I think she might have a future in the theatre!   

Tonight one of the strangest things happened. I came home from the store and as I pulled onto my street I saw three police cruisers parked on the street with lights flashing and everything. There was a uniformed officer standing at my neighbors place as they were filling out paper work. I’m thinking, “Now that doesn’t happen every day.”

After I got my groceries in I went over to ask my neighbor what happened. She said someone down the street a ways, about three houses or so (which would be six duplexes), decided to shoot at someone! I don’t know all the details, but apparently he was outside in the yard, and he had an argument with someone or someone he didn’t like drove by, I guess. Any way, he had a gun in his hand and….BANG! Of course most all the neighbors called the police, and they showed up right away and took the guy to jail. It must have happened not long before I got there because I saw them put the man in the squad car, cuffs and everything! I half-expected the theme song to start playing. “Bad Boys, Bad Boys……whatchya gonna do?”    

Normally my street is pretty quiet. It’s kinda close to a bad part of town, but it’s not that bad. I go walking all the time. There’s an old man that lives near by. My next door neighbors are two middle-aged sisters, one of whom has had a stroke. So it’s not the kind of place that you really expect people to shoot at each other…with real guns any way! But I guess I wasn’t completely shocked. I just kind of shrugged it off. They got the guy, and I don’t really expect anything like that to happen again. My neighbor was like “We don’t do that stuff down here.” As if to say, “We’re not going to allow someone to start doing that craziness!”  I think practically every neighbor called the cops. 

I’m just glad I got their after the incident or else I might have had to fill out a bunch of paper work! (Not to mention doning my super-hero spandex and catching the bad guy single-handed.)