Home, not-so-sweet home

So, sometimes things don't work out the way we plan them... That's what happened with the cute little house I had been renting since January here in Guatemala City.

One night in May around 10:30, I started hearing noises at the gate of the property where I was staying (many houses in Central America are either inside a gated community, secured by policemen, or, as mine was, by itself but surrounded by a large gate topped with barbed wire). Some men tried to break in, but fortunately I was able to wake up my neighbors who went outside with me to scare them away. I thought things would calm down, but in June there was another attempted break in. The second time, however, the men actually got over the gate and were outside my front door...really and truly they were only a couple of feet away from me! Talk about spooky! But God is so good, because somehow I found the courage to yell and bang around and let them know the police were on their way (while I didn't actually know that for sure, it seemed like a good thing to say!).

Needless to say, it was time to find somewhere else to live. Fortunately, I was able to find a nice house, not far from where I lived before, but this time within a gated community (in fact, it is the first house right inside the neighborhood, and my bedroom window looks down right into the guard post)! There is plenty of room to spread out, my puppy has a beautiful park right next door to play in and the best thing of all is I can sleep soundly at night instead of having one ear always atuned, listening for suspicious noises. I am still looking for a roommate to help with expenses, but I feel fortunate to have been able to move so quickly (again the credit goes to God...how else could I have gotten out of the contract at my old house - a nearly impossible feat, found a new house, signed the contract, and moved all of my stuff in only three days?!).

It has been an interesting time here lately, for me, because in addition to the attempted break-ins, my car was also broken into around the same time, and my wallet, phone, housekeys, books and notebooks from school and all my CD's were stolen. My reactions were a mix of fear, saddness and anger...I had always been told that if I just stuck to the safe parts of town, at reasonable times of day, I should be perfectly safe. Well, my car was broken into at a gas station a couple of blocks from my house and I always thought where I lived was a good part of town. I struggled quite a bit with understanding why these things were happening to me, why not just once but three times I felt threatened and unsecure, why things weren't going the way I wanted them to go when I was doing everything I thought I should be doing... And then I realized...I tend to trust in myself way too much, to depend on myself to be able to manage things. And not just physically, but I often have that mentality in my ministries, in my relationships, in my spiritual life...If I just follow the steps that I think are best, if I just apply myself, if I just work hard enough, everything will be fine.

As I looked back at the three "incidents" that happened, I began realizing how easily something much worse could have happened. Just one little squeeze on a trigger, just one minute earlier or later, and everything could have turned out differently. That's when I realized that it really doesn't matter how in-control I think I am...I'm really not. And sometimes it takes extreme situations to learn, or be reminded of, really simple lessons.