Shootout at the Willow Oak Corral: Another Amazed by God Post

Okay, y'all. Jest cuz I saw Cowboys and Aliens and LOVED IT, doesn't give me the right to post about shootouts, right?

How about gunshots on my block, a hole in a neighbor's truck, and a miraculous escape from a gunman?
Will that do it?

Lat Saturday night around one o'clock in the morning, I heard what sounded like a cap gun. You know the sound. Tinny, small, quick pop, pop, pop. Three in a row.
It's always just firecrackers when I hear these. I ignored it.
Till the dogs started barking.

Then hubby went outside, being the brave masculine protector of the family that he is, and hid behind our van to see if anyone was, by chance, on our street. We lady folk huddled in the master bedroom at the back of the house and, well, freaked out. Everyone except me. I tend to be pretty low key most of the time. Mostly I just prayed for whoever it was out there, and for my husband.

He saw a man walking slowly down the middle of the street (there was a half moon out) and called out, "Hello?"
When there was no answer, and the guy kept walking toward him, my gallant hubby decided to save himself for his family and ran inside the front door, locking it behind him.

It was then that we heard , "Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop." Five more of those.

They were not, in fact firecrackers, or caps from a cap gun.

Turns out some guys came to a neighbor's house to collect some money he owed them. One of the girls of the house was just returning home and seeing trouble ran into the house just when he fired the five shots. She felt the air rush past her, but she was not hit. One of the bullets made a pretty hefty hole in the neighbor's truck.

We'd called 9-11 after the eighth shot, and apparently they caught the guys.

"I'm glad you're okay." I told my neighbor. And once again, I was thankful.

Education is A Privilege and a Choice

If you have college age children, you may understand the frustration many of us are going through concerning the high cost of education. Do you remember it being this hard when we were young?

I was discussing the difficulty of getting a good education in America with my friend from Germany and said in exasperation,"In America education is privilege and privilege is education!"

She wisely corrected my statement. "Education is privilege, but privilege is not always education."

"It's no longer possible to even become president unless you were born to a life of privilege!" I whined.

"When was the last time you had a president that didn't come from a privileged background?" She asked.

"Abraham Lincoln!" I said. "The Golden Boy." It may have been a slight exaggeration.

And then I remembered how he educated himself, because he wanted to, and not because it was easy. I have often told my daughters, if they are educated in this day and age, it will be because they wanted it badly enough.  Education is no longer a byproduct of being American. And perhaps it never should have been.

But then, neither should there be education centers that are attainable to the underprivileged, or immigrant, and unattainable to the natural born, working class citizen.

My rant is over. Off to self-educate.

The old fashioned way. By reading.

My Education: Day 16 of the Count Your Blessings Challenge

Somehow I made it through college and earned a bachelor's degree with only $1500 in student loans!

When I look at the maze of difficulty it takes for my kids to get their education it astounds me that I even finished college. But what a great blessing it is to have completed a leg of the education journey! I am so thankful for those who helped along the way.

One aspect of my education was 'off site', and I am still in awe of this blessing. A woman, whom I only knew as Mrs. Gilmore had taken an annual trip to the Holy Land and had  become too ill to take the trip one year. She asked the college staff to choose a student to go in her place. For some reason, I was chosen! My entire way was paid!

How can one begin to measure the value of this gift?

I stood on the mount of Olives overlooking the Gate Beautiful of Jerusalem, and breathed a prayer much like the one Jesus had verbalized in the very same spot, "Not my will for my life, but Yours, God."

I also saw that in other parts of the world they do not feel compelled to have front lawns made of grass or to change their outfit every single day. These were things I always thought were compulsory. Hmm. My mind was blown open in more ways than one.

I saw another part of the world that I never would have been able to experience any other way. As a Christian, I was in awe of the fact that the much glorified Middle East is 'just a place' and that Jesus had chosen  rather ordinary geography to come to earth. That meant He was more 'human' than I ever dared believe. That meant He might as well have come to my home town. For all practical purposes, He did!
Mrs. Gilmore, thank you!