Saturday, June 11, 2016

You can't unsee...........

What do you do when you see something that you didn't necessarily think you would ever see?   How do you process some of the things you have experienced or witnessed in your life time?     What about when someone else says that what you just seen or experienced was over dramatized by what you just told in your word picture?     Do you compartmentalize, do you shut down or do you allow yourself to feel what you feel and ask for God's help to just help you sort it out?     There's a lot of things that happen in our lives that are out of our control.    Sometimes, even if the situation is happening to us, it may still be out of our control to stop.    For me or anyone else to minimize what has happened to anyone or what anyone has witnessed with their own eyes is terrible.   Unless or until we have been in a situation where someone has stolen our right to make decisions over what does or doesn't happen to us, we need to keep our judgement and spite at a minimum.

My brother and I was blessed to spend the day together on Saturday, June 4th, when he came and picked me up at Mom's place and we headed out up north to pick my Mom up and bring her back home.    She had spent a few days with her niece and we met them half way to pick her up and bring her back home.     We met at my aunt and uncles house about 3 hours away.     My brother and I left out pretty early, just a few minutes before 6am on Saturday morning.  We drove about an hour and a half or 2 hours and stopped at a little town for breakfast.    The place we ate at had a motel just across the parking lot from it.    We went in and got our breakfast and got a window seat to enjoy it.    Just outside the window was a four way stop light.   The traffic was pretty heavy with lots of cars stopped three ways while one way had the right of way.     All of the sudden, there came four guys running across the front lawn of the restaurant from the motel and running on up to the stoplight.    It caught my eye and attention and out of nowhere, a thought jumped into my mind, "take note of what you are seeing".    I had no idea what was about to happen.    Then it happened.

There was a vehicle sitting at the light with a sunroof and it was open and the windows was rolled down.    Those four guys jumped on that vehicle in such a brutal, violent attack that I was just dumbfounded!!!!!    I thought I was watching a horrid evil scene from a movie, which I choose not to watch, by the way.    Two of the guys jumped on the roof of the car and lowered their legs into the car and started kicking and thrashing at the driver and passenger violently!!!!!   One of the guys still on the ground, was on the drivers side trying to pull the driver out all the while slinging his fists and on the passenger side the same thing was happening!!!!    Four guys at the four way light intersection letting loose such a violent brutal attack on the people in that car!!!    I was suddenly sick to the pit of my stomach!!!   I fully expected shots to be fired!!!!    Praise God that did not happen!!!!  

The light changed for this lane of traffic to go and they were still brutally attacking the people in that vehicle, but the car finally did get away from them.    When the guys turned and started running back to the motel, they were actually harassing people in other vehicles with threatening gestures and lurching like they wanted to pick a fight with others.    I was afraid and not one little bit ashamed to say that!!!!   I had to go to the restroom and when I came back out, someone inside the restaurant had gotten word that it was two girls in the vehicle and one of them was pregnant!!!   That was just too much to hear!!!!!

Granted, I have no idea what all this was about.   But I will say this, it was more than likely sin based. I don't know what the sin was, I don't care what the sin was, but I do say it was sin based.   Two police vehicles showed up at the motel and a few minutes later, the vehicle with the two girls came back to the motel.   I'll tell you what hurts my heart.    That unborn baby was put in danger!!!!!!  I don't know what it was all about, but I'll just bet that it wasn't as important as a human life!!!!   My brother and I finally left and headed on our way, but we both was heavy hearted over what we just seen and witnessed.    Granted, we don't have the full story.   When a human life, a baby's life is at stake, I don't need the full story to say that should never have taken place.

I have asked God to help me make heads or tails out of this and realize that my life has been changed from having witnessed this brutal and violent attack.   I have asked God for my life to be changed for the better from having witnessed this.    God is going to have to help me work this out.    It's one thing to see something like this on the big screen in a movie theater, but it's totally different seeing something like this in real life with your own eyes.    It changes that soft place in your heart just a little bit.   It can change it for the better or it can change it for the worse.   I just pray for every person that seen that attack with their owns eyes, that God would draw them closer to Him and fill them with Himself.    I pray for that precious little unborn baby!!!!    I pray for that little baby to know the protection of the Lord!!!!

I don't know how to pray for the others yet.    Well, yes I do, I just haven't reached the point of wanting to pray for them as God would have me pray for them.   I do pray for God's will to be done in their lives.    I pray that they could see that what they done was a terrible thing.   I am thankful for the police arriving on the scene.    I am thankful that no shots were fired!!!!   I am thankful for the safety that He provided for my brother and myself!!!

You can't unsee things and you can't unhear things and you can't undo some things.    And we don't have to hurt someone by minimizing what they have witnessed.     If God is teaching me more compassion, that's a great thing!!!!     When I have to be in a place of negativity, I just ask God to give me strength.    I am responsible for how I think.   God gave me the authority to call on Him to overcome bad and troubling thoughts and to give Him ultimate control over the situations that I happen to be witness to.     I have the right to choose thinking positively.   I choose to focus on God, His will and positivity over negativity.    I choose to believe that God can overcome physical sickness just as well as spiritual sickness.    God is able!!!!!!

God is well able to use what we witnessed this passed weekend.    I don't know how He is going to use it, but I will NOT limit His power and authority over how He wants to use it.   I pray that God will intervene in the lives of the ones involved and boldly change them to the point of repentance.  I pray for God to intervene in my life and use me more boldly, to stand up for Him no matter the situation.   I pray for God's will be done.

James 2:13   For judgement is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.  Mercy triumphs over judgement.

Father God, help me to ALWAYS show mercy!!!!   Because Your Word says that mercy triumphs over judgement!!!   Help me to show mercy!!!   Remove the judgemental spirit from me!!!!    Show me Your way more clearly!!!!    Help me to triumph with an abundance of mercy!!!!!

I have had a full week to think on what my brother and I witnessed last weekend and I have to say that I do believe that all of us will be seeing more and more of this stuff happening.    We see and hear of it every time we turn the tv on.    We are seeing more and more criminal acts taking place.   Why is that?    Hate filled hearts!    A person can't have love in their heart and do some of the things that we see people doing.    We can't praise God and curse God in the same breath.    We have total control, with God's help, over what we think and how we act.   One person behaving hatefully can cause a chain reaction, which in turn can form a mob.    Have you ever thought about the mob that shouted "crucify Him, crucify Him"?    I have, and more so here lately than ever.    What side of the mob would I have been on?    I love to think, sitting here in the safety of my home, some 2000 years after the fact, that I would have been with the small group that loved Jesus.    But you know what?     I really don't know which side I would have been on.    As much as I love Jesus and what He has done for me, I truthfully can not say which side I would have been on!!!     I am so thankful that I didn't have to make the choice back then.     But, I have still had to make the choice as to whether I follow Him or not.    "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back"!!     I know a lot of y'all will recognize this phrase from a church song.    When I started typing it, I didn't mean for it to be a lyric from a song, but then it was and I googled the song and the following is some of what wiki-pedia has to say about the song:

"I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" is a Christian hymn originating from India.

The lyrics are based on the last words of a man in Assam, north-east India, who along with his family decided to follow Jesus Christ in the middle of the 19th century through the efforts of a Welsh missionary.    Called to renounce his faith by the village chief, the convert declared, "I have decided to follow Jesus." In response to threats to his family, he continued, "Though no one joins me, still I will follow."    His wife was killed, and he was executed while singing, "The cross before me, the world behind me."    This display of faith is reported to have led to the conversion of the chief and others in the village.

The formation of these words into a hymn is attributed to the Indian missionary Sadhu Sundar Singh. The melody is also Indian, and entitled "Assam" after the region where the text originated.   The fierce opposition is possible as various tribes in that area were formerly renowned for head-hunting.

For more indepth information, click on the provided link.   I do not know what else this website offers so, I am not promoting the website as I don't know what else you will find, but the info provided on this song is powerful.

https://emailmeditations.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/499-the-story-behind-the-song-i-have-decided-to-follow-jesus/

What we chose in this life will show by how we live our lives.    If we are out to hurt people with word or deed, that will show.    If we are to help people with word or deed, that too, will show.   People are and will forever be changed and affected by how we live.    We will live peaceably with our fellow humans or we will look for ways to hurt those around us.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (KJV)

The decision is ours!!!!

I hope there is something in this that can help another person in some small way.     I just had to get this out of my system and I did so by journaling and it ended up being a blog post.    My friend and I was talking about this and we came to the conclusion that this is a time of tilling and tearing up the soil for a future harvest that God has in store.     Now, the growth process starts in hopes of an abundant harvest!!!!    God is good all the time and all the time God is good!!!    Nothing ever goes un-noticed by God!!!    Praises be to God Almighty!!!!

I hope and pray everyone has a blessed day in the name of Jesus Christ!!!!     Remember at all times that God loves you!     I love y'all too.    Till we meet here again, hugs and love, Patty

10 comments:

  1. What a horrible thing to have to witness. I can understand the fear and helplessness you must have felt, not being able to help the girls in the car and not sure where those angry men were going to strike next. I am grateful for your safety and your attitude about the whole thing. I am afraid we will continue to see more and more violence as our nation turns further away from God and His Son Jesus. I too am grateful that that a righteous, loving, just and merciful God, who is able to turn all into good for those who love Him, is in charge.

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    1. Thank you Lisa. It has been hard to digest to say the least. You never know what is gonna happen. And I do believe it will get much worse, but we do have a righteous God who is able!!!! hugs, Patty

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  2. Oh Patty what a terrible incident to whitness. I will pray you find peace after such an experience. Violence is never an answer to any problem. I hope the people involved can learn that much and regret placing anyone in harms way. Anyway, I will pray the Lord has a happy ending for that unborn child. Turn it over to the almighty for we know that is right and good. Peace and love. p

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    1. Thanks Peg!!! It took me a while to deal with it and I just had to turn it over to God!!! Thanks again Peg. hugs, Patty

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  3. Patti, I am terribly sorry you witnessed such brutality. As you clearly say, "We can't unsee, we can't unhear". The only thing we can do is give it over to God. His guidance will direct us... beautifully written post, Patti

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    1. Thank you Sylvia!!! When I first journaled about it, it was really angry and I did not want it to come across that way so I had to adjust it to how God was directing me to go with it. Thanks again Sylvia. Hugs, Patty

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  4. I always enjoy hearing from you. This was truly a sad situation that you witness. I'm praying that the people in this world will get better and not bitter towards one another in the precious name of Jesus. Have a lovely weekend!

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    1. Thanks Lois and I think you said it best, "better not bitter"! Thanks again!!! hugs, Patty

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  5. That is so horrible. I will keep you, the women and those men in prayer.

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    1. Thanks so much Tina!!! I think it was the most afraid I have ever been as an adult. I never want to be in or near a situation like that again, but it's world we live in today. Thanks for your prayers, hugs, patty

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