"At this time in my life, the Lord had been waking me up a lot very early in the morning. This particular time, He woke me up at three o’clock in the morning. Those of you who sleep during this time of the night may not know this, but there’s often very good preaching scheduled late at night. In fact, there’s a wonderful praise program on TV, so I picked up the TV remote and started searching, searching, searching.
“What do You want me to see? What do You want me to see?” I asked as each channel flew by. I knew from past experience that I would know it when I saw it, and I fully expected it to be some priceless gem of spiritual teaching. Suddenly, I stopped changing channels and stood riveted in place. This was not a Christian channel as I had expected. It was a newscast!
The first thing that caught my eye was the yellow crime tape that goes up so quickly around a crime scene, such as a murder. Then I heard the words: ‘…Bombing of gay bar–Atlanta.’ I caught just that much of it and my eyes were now glued to the TV. Suddenly, I saw Joseph. My son was at the scene and was talking with a reporter who was interviewing him. It seems that they suspected that the bombing may have been carried out by the same person who bombed the Olympics and an abortion clinic.
Now someone has bombed the bar where Joseph’s friend Bobby was manager. Joe had gone over that evening to help out his friend because he was short-handed. Now, I’m watching my son being interviewed. Thankfully, I can see that there are no wounds and that he does not appear to be hurt. I watched that newscast over and over and over again until about five in the morning, at which time I finally went back to bed. At six o’clock, the phone rang.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me.” I was so glad to hear Joseph’s voice. “I’m just calling you because I didn’t want you to get up and hear the news.”
“Stop right there, Joseph. I’ve been watching you since three o’clock this morning, son.”
“Of course. I should have known. God woke you up, didn’t He, Mother? I was scared that if you got up and just heard the news without knowing I was okay, you’d have a heart attack.”
“I probably would have, son. I probably would have. But God prepared me. I want you to know that I’m coming to Atlanta. Just as soon as that mess is cleaned up, I’m coming there because I want to see where you work. You know that I love you and these things are scary, so just prepare for a visit.”
“That’ll be fine, Mom. I would love to have you come.”
-End of Excerpt-