Where were you in the fall of 1991, more specifically Oct 16,1991? For me this day culminated about two years of mentioning off hand in one setting or another, “Our lives an the lives of our love ones depend upon our instantly hearing and obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit.”
Beginning on or about Oct 10, I began to feel concern for my mother who lived in Killeen, Tx. We did not have cell phones in those days, but used land lines like home phones or pay phones. I could not get to a phone at the time and with the confusion and demands of life, I failed to call that night nor the next night. Sunday I did call her but the phone did not answer. Finally by Monday the 14th The internal anxiety became so great that at lunch I stopped work and drove to find a phone that would call out. When My Mom picked the phone she seemed discouraged, as she had recently experienced a break-in. Some one had forced the back door, breaking the jams and entering at a time that she was at work. In those years she worked for an insurance agency selling all product lines. The thieves seemed to know where the valuables were located and did not do much other damage other than the theft(s.)
One of my skills is repairing and installing doors. I told her that I was finishing up a job that day that had lasted a week, would “cash-out,” meaning get paid and would be free for a day or two. As I thought through the situation, I suggested that I drive to various suppliers and pick up the needed materials, get up early the following morning to come down to repair the damage. Everyone would love it. On Wednesday, we could load up the van and bring the family for a day visit with Mimi, our grandma. Most particularity, My oldest would love a day at Mimi’s office doing filing and other incidentals that My Mom did not enjoy, but my daughter just loved to do.
After a little discussion, she relented and agreed to permit us to come. I am sure that she was thinking of the standing luncheon appointment that she had with the credit union officer in charge of auto loans. This lady would hand carry information as to who needed insurance coverage based upon the loans from the previous week. This week was extra special as it was National Bosses week(day) in which people took their bosses to lunch on Wednesday in order to honor and foster morale.
On the Wednesday morning after fading AM traffic we arrived in Killeen around ten thirty. The local Wendy’s still offered breakfast, so I stopped to fill the kids up before we arrived at her house. It never ceased to shock me how hungry everyone would be just after we walked into the door. At my mom’s house. I knew she would be at work and not prepared to fix a table of food. It took us about forty five minutes to finish up, and as we got close, I called my mom’s office to “surprise” her with the news that we were in town. My oldest, about fifteen, was to be dropped by her office and we were to proceed to the house. This was such an unusual event that all were excited and so plans were set. She made arrangements with her friend to have lunch a little later than the usual twelve o’clock hour. This was to give my mom time to get the office things cleared up and unknown to me stop by a different hamburger place to get enough to feed my crew (lunch.) Did they really need more food?
Traffic and busy lunch pushed my mom’s plans back even later and she just arrived at the house around 12:45. I could tell that she was nervous about the time. I simply asked her to leave the food and proceed (with my daughter) to Luby’s to make the lunch date. We would be fine. I nearly had the door completed by then and it looked like all would go as scheduled. When she arrived at the restaurant around ten till one, the place was blocked off. Looked like some one ad driven through the front window, must be some kind of accident at lunch. Degree of damage was not known but it looked serious. Her lunch plans were definitely going to be changed. I the confusion, She called friends in the Killeen Police and discovered that some one had been shot, This was an “unheard of” happening in this little home of the largest army base in Texas.
We arrived home (back in Dallas,Tx) to discover the ten pm news story about the tragic events of this the :”Killeen Massacre.” This was at that time the greatest act of violence that had ever been perpetrated upon the citizens of this country. I called my Mom again to find that she was still in shock. She mentioned that her friend was gone and the funeral wold be next week. I cried with her as we recounted the events of the previous week and the surprising co-incidence of the broken door and it’s life altering effect in our lives.
As it turns out for the previous couple years we had been attending a church that started a daily prayer meeting. The backbone of this prayer time centered around “The Lords Prayer.” In particular we would insert the names of family and loved ones into it in the place of (Our.) The goal was to provide a kind of umbrella of sorts over these who were important.
How often over the intervening years have I wondered what might have happened if on that particular day I had failed to: call, change plans, or act upon the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. Today my mom is a great grand mother after twenty seven years and leading many to righteousness as she knows it. In the last ten years she has been active in her Baptist church taking as many to Sunday school as her car would carry.
I have shared this story with very few, not wanting to bring undue attention to her or in any way dishonor her by bringing to the surface memories most of us would rather forget. She is still able to verify facts to those in the class of “Holocaust Deniers,” who might like to suggest that this never happened. Write these thoughts today after praying “The Lord’s Prayer” with the names of friends and family; hoping that any contemporary event to rival this in the story would like wise some how be interrupted and the names of my people protected. How bad would I feel to find that some calamity might have been averted in their lives, had some one prayed. So with all of the emotion that I feel about talking to my mom last night, because she is still alive, I beg you to pray the Lord’s prayer and other verses over you friends and loved ones. We have little difficulty placing our names in the John 3:16 Whomever believes, I am suggesting that we could place a few extra names in the Luke 11:2 Our Father.
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