Two days ago my teenage daughter and I went to the mall. We settled in a parking lot where a group of young men lurked near the store entrance. They appeared to be gang members, but I paid little attention to them. My daughter Cami and I were in a hurry, having only twenty minutes to grab a birthday present for a friend before heading to my other daughter’s soccer game. Our SUV was perfectly fine when we walked into the mall. When we came out twenty minutes later, our tire was flat to the rim. This was a good tire gone bad in a hurry, which baffled me, but again, I didn’t give it much thought. I got on my phone and began calling for help.
The parking lot was quiet due to a rainstorm. No people were about except for the gang members, and, strangely, there was a couple flirting and kissing and leaning against a car parked near ours. The couple’s car was even running, but the couple chose to stand beside their car in plain sight instead of ducking the rain by getting inside the idling vehicle. These were not kids, this was a couple probably in their thirties, mind you.
“Boy, this is dumb and dumber,” I said to my daughter, motioning to that giddy couple in the drizzle, then pointing to us with the flat tire. Dumb and dumber is an inside joke Cami and I share. We have these days where we bump into each other in the kitchen or crack heads like both of us have lost our balance or our brains while trying to make dinner or do dishes together.
“They are definitely dumber. Why are they wasting all their gas?” asked Cami. “Why don’t they at least kiss in the car where it’s warm and dry?”
“Fools in love,” I replied, noticing again the gang members lounging under the mall eve watching us. By now I was throwing up prayers such as, help us, Lord. Let someone answer their phone at least. I was on my third call when I finally reached my dad.
“I’m real busy here at work, but I’ll be over when I can get there,” said Dad.
After hanging up with my dad, I told Cami, “Try to get a friend to come pick you up. This is going to take awhile. Maybe you can grab a ride to the soccer game and I’ll be there once the tire is fixed.”
A few more phone calls and Cami found a lift to the game. Finally, my dad appeared, and when he did, the soaked, but smiling couple climbed into their car and drove off. They’d been there laughing and kissing for nearly an hour in the rain as the gang members intently watched.
Together my dad and I removed the tire, left the car on the jack, and went to a nearby tire shop to have the tire patched. By now it was nearly five p.m. We were blessed to get to the shop shortly before it closed. The man who fixed the tire, which had been punctured, said it looked like perhaps a screw driver had done the damage.
Back at the car, my dad while putting the tire on, could not be seen by the gang members a ways off on the other side of the car. I’m guessing that I appeared to be alone at that point when I went to the other side of my car for several minutes. One bold young man from the group strolled over offering to help me then. When I told the young man that my dad was there on the other side of the car fixing the tire, the young man appeared quite disappointed. I thanked him for his nice offer to help and watched him sullenly return to his friends.
My tire was now on and my dad and I climbed in our cars at the same time and drove away with the gang still staring my way.
I thought little about all this until I went to bed. Mostly my mind had been set on getting over to my daughter’s soccer game before it ended. I did make the last few minutes of the match and my daughter’s team lost.
When I lay down to sleep that night, my mind began replaying the strange afternoon in the mall parking lot. I realized that on Monday during my weekly time with one of my prayer partners, I felt strongly that we needed to pray for protection in the coming days.
“I don’t know why I feel this way,” I told my prayer partner. “But protection is really on my heart for us this week.” Usually this would have worried me, but after praying with my partner about it, I didn’t think again about protection until I lay there in bed on Tuesday thanking God for helping us with the flat tire. All of a sudden it hit me that perhaps Cami and I had been in danger that afternoon. That someone had punctured our tire with the intent to make us vulnerable. That maybe that nice request to help from the gang member had carried evil tidings. Thank you, Lord for that silly couple in love who never left my side until Dad arrived, I prayed upon realizing that the young man did not approach me until I seemed alone in the parking lot. Thank you so much, Lord for protecting our teenage daughters who drive in their cars alone every day and who sometimes go to the mall by themselves.
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them, says Psalm 34:7. And in Hebrews 13:6, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” These Bible scriptures are in my devotions this week along with other scriptures about protection. I follow a daily reading plan so I did not choose these scriptures upon realizing I needed protection. These scriptures are printed in the devotions and set upon a date years in advance. Two of these devotions were written nearly a hundred years ago. In one of my devotions, Daily Light for Every Day the scripture on our flat tire day reads, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” Psalm 23:4.
My guess is there have been many times in my life that I needed protection without even realizing it. Times when God surrounded me with angels in the midst of danger and delivered me from evil when I didn’t even know I needed deliverance.
I do know that the time I spend in prayer is far from wasted. That this prayer routine has brought protection. I have several prayer partners I pray with weekly on different days. And I pray every day with my children and husband. I also pray daily on my own with a Bible and my devotions. So many times my devotions and Bible reading have lined up with events in my life. I believe that prayer not only brings protection; it brings peace with God and all kinds of other blessings.
“When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles” Psalm 34:17.
How true this promise is even when we go to the mall 😉