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a story of evil and protection

I don't post twice in one day. Pretty sure I've never done it before, and there's a pretty good chance I'll never do it again.

Today, though, I had to make an exception.

There is evil in this world. Most of the time here in the U.S. we see it from a distance, a faceless terror affecting the lives of other people. It seldom affects us, so though we know it is there we don't feel it's effects.

This morning, evil reached out and touched my family.

I sent Nathan off to school this morning, because he's going to be spending the next year dividing his weekdays between the college campus and a high school campus while he works towards a Master's in education. After fixing breakfast for the kids at around 7 a.m., I saw multiple missed calls from Nathan. When I got him on the phone, he told me that a wheel had come off of the Bronco as he drove into Toledo. A little while later, after being towed to a service station, he told me that the mechanics were emphatic: the Bronco had been sabotaged.

That's not a word I use lightly, but it is all that fits in this case. I have only spoken to him through text messages so far because his phone battery was too low to be able to call, but Nathan told me that apparently all the lug nuts had been loosened on all the tires. The tires had also been cut somehow, though I'm still not entirely clear on the details. They didn't appear flat when Nathan left, so I'm not sure how they were cut. Once the truck is drivable again, he's on his way to the police station to make a report and figure out where we go from here.

Honestly, I'm terrified. I have no idea what it takes for someone to want to do that, and I have no idea why anyone would want to do that to us. Our safety has been put in jeopardy, and I'm desperate to regain some sense of control over the situation.

At the same time, I am infuriated. Someone set out to hurt my family. MY family. That is not something I am able to just accept, and it will probably take me a little while to forgive--and then definitely not through my own strength.

I know, though, that the evil my husband and I were introduced to this morning does not even begin to compare to the evil attacking others on a daily basis, all around the world. For those people, my heart aches and my soul cries out in prayers of protection and strength.

Though this morning has given me a small taste of the evil in this world, it has also reminded me of something great:

~God is good.
~God takes care of His children.
~He and He alone protected my husband as he drove the 30 miles into the city this morning on four loosened, cut tires.
~God has a plan for us, and Evil is powerless before Him.

"But the LORD is faithful,
and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one."
~2 Thessalonians 3: 3

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