Two nights ago at 2:29 a.m., six gunshots shattered the air. They sounded as close as our yard. I jumped out of bed and called 911 to report them.
Before I fell asleep again, I thought back to our earlier days in the neighborhood. Here's a blog installment I first posted on January 8, 2015. Years have passed, but the message remains.
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When we entered through the back door that day in May 2008, I felt it before I saw it. I crossed through the kitchen and dining room, and when I got to the living room, my stomach flipped. The front door stood wide open, sunshine streaming in from the porch. The door’s lock mechanism was on the floor across the room.
“Something’s wrong,” I said to the girls, ages four, six, and eight. “Go back outside.”
I phoned the police from the back yard. Two officers arrived in minutes, and I assured them we hadn’t been inside the house long—just long enough to see the open front door and missing lock.
“We’ll have a look around,” the first one said. “Stay out here.”
The officers disappeared inside our house.
“We’ll go back in soon,” I said to the girls. “First, let’s see who can run fastest across the yard.”
Minutes later, one of the officers called to us from the back door.
“You can come in now. It’s all clear,” he said, pulling out his notepad. “Take a look, and let us know if anything’s gone.”
I passed from room to room, checking the house. Nothing. Not even a mess—other than our own—was left behind.
“It looks okay,” I said.
“Dexter was hiding under your bed, Mama,” Ricka said, holding the trembling dog in her arms.
One of the officers jotted some notes on his pad and gave me his card. Then I watched our sense of security walk down our front steps and drive off in a police car.
I called Husband who was at the airport ready to board a flight for a three-day trip to Amsterdam. I told him about our afternoon surprise.
“Can you come home?” I said.
“I can’t get out of the trip at this point.”
“Not even if you tell them someone kicked in your front door today?”
“No.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
“You’ll be all right.”
I paced while I talked with him, and then I noticed something. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“I guess I only locked the lock on the door knob when we left earlier—not the deadbolt. I usually lock both.”
“Good. Then you can deadbolt the door tonight. I’ll replace the lock when I get home.”
I scrutinized the door. “And another thing. The glass is covered with fingerprints.”
“Well, we have kids.”
“But the prints are shaped like parentheses. Like someone cupped his eyes to see in.”
“I’ll deal with it when I get home. Don’t wipe them off.”
“Let’s all sleep together in my bed,” I said to the girls that night, switching on a smile. “It’ll be fun.”
The four of us slid under the covers. I turned off the bedside lamps, and my little ones snuggled inside my arms. When the excitement of the “sleepover” melted away, they drifted off to sleep. I steadied my breathing. In spite of the company, I felt alone in the dark.
In the shadow of His wings.
My ears perked up at the sound of each passing car, each horn in the distance. I stared at the ceiling.
I will lie down and sleep in peace for You alone make me dwell in safety. Safety.
The next day, the girls and I talked about the intruder.
“Maybe Dexter was barking so loud it scared him away,” Dicka said.
“Maybe so,” I said.
“I bet he saw an angel in our living room, got scared, and ran off,” Ricka said.
I nodded. “It’s very possible.”
When Husband returned from his work trip, he inspected the front door. He picked up the phone and dialed.
“We need someone to come over and dust for prints,” he said. “How soon could that happen?”
The cast of “CSI: Minneapolis” was at our front door within the hour. Exhaling male bravado, the men muscled their suitcases inside the porch and snapped them open. They swirled their brushes around on the glass of our front door—inside and out—and examined the doorknob with a magnifying glass.
Husband got a phone call from the police a few days later.
“Do you know a Larry Campbell?” an officer asked him.
“No,” Husband said.
“That’s the name of the guy from the prints on your door. Sixteen years old. Doesn’t live in your neighborhood.”
The girls prayed for Larry Campbell that night. And every night after that.
Two months after the break-in, a salesman came to our door peddling security systems. Husband and I listened to his pitch. We liked what we heard and agreed to the protection plan.
“Do you get tips from the police and then market these systems to people who’ve had recent break-ins?” I said.
“No,” the man said with a chuckle, “but that’s a good idea.”
We ate our dinner at the dining room table while the man installed a keypad on the wall a few feet from us. Would it make any difference? Brian, the previous homeowner, had staked a sign for a security company into the soil of the front garden when his family lived in our house. We hadn’t activated the system—just left the sign there as a scarecrow. But it was a tin lie, backed by nothing. And Larry Campbell probably hadn’t noticed—or cared.
The idea of paying for safety now felt ludicrous. As if we could hold our lives in our own hands and trust a system—managed by humans—to bring us security. Although we agreed to the protection, I knew I couldn’t rely on it—or even on Husband, away so often for work—to protect us. I could only trust the One.
And in the shadow of His wings was the only place I’d ever find safety.
