Praising God at all times
It was a nice peaceful afternoon. We had just finished our Friday evening youth group and I offered to take a couple of visitors to their homes. They lived in an area I didn't know. It would be interesting to see where it was. We chatted contentedly as we drove along.
As I came to the intersection I slowed to make the left hand turn. The light was in my favor so I went on across.
Stopped at the intersection in the direction I was turning was a city bus. As I came across the driver of the bus crossed over into my lane of traffic, planning to stop at the curb on the wrong side of the road to prepare for a left hand turn he intended to make when the light changed instead of waiting where he should have in the right hand lane. As he came across he hit my door just a little behind where I was sitting.
I got out to look at the damage and to stop him. He was planning to just keep going. There was a police car stopped two cars behind in the lane where the bus driver should have been.
I signaled for them so that they could see how abusive the driver had been, and they came quickly.
To my surprise they informed me that they were taking us both into the police precinct. They appointed a policeman to ride with me and one to ride in the bus.
The policeman who rode along with me was a very non assuming, low ranking officer and I convinced him to let me drive past my son's home so I could let him know where I was. My son's father-in-law was the chief of police and I wanted him to get in touch with him and see if he could help me.
When I arrived at my son's home no one was there but the maid. I told her what had happened and to which precinct they were taking me. I then asked the policeman for permission to go by my home, which was only a couple more blocks out of the way, so I could let my maid know where I was and have her put my daughter to bed if I was late getting back. I also asked her to tell my son where I was if he should come by.
When I arrived at the precinct I tried to talk with the officer in charge, but he wasn't telling me anything. I then told him that I was sure he had made a mistake, and that my son's father-in-law was the police chief and if I could just get in touch with him, I was sure he would straighten out everything. He only laughed at me and said that his father was also the president of the United States. He indicated that I should just sit down and wait. A friend who was with me called her brother, who had at one time been on the police force, thinking that maybe he could help us out. I sat waiting and waiting, but no one said or did anything. Finally my friend's brother arrived, but there was nothing he could do. He did offer to go by my home and make sure that everything was OK there. I continued to wait, and then my son and his wife arrived. He said that they had been unable to get in touch with his father-in-law. That he had gone out of town for the weekend and wouldn't be back until late Sunday night and no one knew how to reach him.
My son and his wife tried talking to the policemen but they had nothing to say. So my son said to me, "let's go out and see what damage was done to your car." As I started to go outside the policeman said, "She can't go out, she is detained."
I went back and sat down and my son went out to look. Actually the damage to the car was not very much, but I had made a fuss because of the illegal behavior of the driver of the bus. As I was coming back through the room the officer in charge whispered to me, "Señora. why are you so upset, come here with me, we can settle this." He wanted me to go into the next room with him where no one would hear him ask me for a bribe. If I paid it he would let me go home. I acted like he hadn't said anything and walked on into the main room and sat down.
My son found that they had already completely removed everything that was removable from the car.
He came back in and we all just sat there waiting for them to tell us something, but nothing was being said or done.
It was now about 12:30 in the early morning and I was getting tired and sleepy. I had worked all day and was feeling the weight of the situation. I said to the policeman, "Well, if I have to spend the night here, I guess you better bring me a blanket so I can sleep on this bench. He went somewhere, supposedly, to get me one.
I closed my eyes and I said, "Lord, you have said that we should praise you at all times, and I am going to praise you for your faithfulness to me. I then began to sing out loud a song that I know in Spanish. I suppose that it is also a praise song in English but I haven't learned it. The words went something like this.
"where ever I go I will praise you, in every moment I'll praise you, because your love surrounds me like the sea. I will exalt your name, I will lift up your name, because the name of Jesus has lifted me."
Just at that moment the telephone rang and it was my son's father-in-law.
Ten minutes later I had received an apology, had all of my things returned to my car and was on my way home.
I know that my praise broke the devils stronghold, and he had to let go.
An interesting ending to this story was that when I came to the States a couple of years later, I started to tell this story to a woman with whom I was working. She stopped me and said, "did you have a little red sports car?" I answered yes, and then she went on to tell me what had happened to me. I was amazed, so I asked her how she knew. She said that she used to be a nun working in a Guatemalan orphanage and she knew a lot of the policemen. When she left the convent and came to the states she continued to correspond with some of them. One of them was the policeman who arrested me. He had told her that they had taken me in, because he knew that the bus driver was to poor to have any money, but they thought they could get me to pay them to let me go.
I had to laugh, they judged me as if I had money because of my car, but at the time I couldn't have offered them anything. The bus driver probably had more money than I did. It made me realize how wrong it is to judge people by their appearance.
The same is true in all our walks of life, how many times do we judge by what our eyes see without knowing the true facts. This is why only God can judge, because only God truly knows what is in each heart. It has been a lesson that I will never forget.
"I will extol the Lord at all times, His praise will always be on my lips"
Psalms 34:1
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