A BAD Sunday Morning

Yesterday started off SO well! We got up early so Dave could do his workout and I could pick up the house and put some clothes away. We had breakfast together and were looking forward to the coming day and time we would spend with Mary and Jerry. We were ready much earlier than usual so we could meet his parents at church (and they are ALWAYS early! Jerry has an OUTSTANDING sense of time management.....................). I was so proud of us for being ready to walk out the door 25 min. earlier than we usually do. It was a nice, HOT sunny morning and I walked to my side of the car, and Dave walked to the driver's side. He had a puzzled look on his face and said very CALMLY, "Someone put something on your car...." I was a little concerned, but not necessarily alarmed. Had I ACTUALLY known what was going through that head of my "oh so calm" husband, I would have RAN to the driver's side of the car.........but instead I wandered around and was ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED and APPALLED at what I saw on the other side of my car!!! I started yelling and getting VERY UPSET! Someone had written GRAFFITI (and an offensive word) all over that side the night before!!! WHAT??? HOW COULD SOMEONE DO SOMETHING THAT EVIL TO OUR THINGS??? I was SO MAD! I started crying and didn't know what to do. Dave immediately asked me to open the garage door and went to find a sponge to try and wipe it off. However, it was PERMANENT MARKER and BLUE SPRAY PAINT! It was NOT coming off with just a sponge and some water! I was LIVID! I told him just to leave the car in our driveway and we would take his truck to church. The whole way to church I was trying to figure out why someone would do that, how we were going
to fix it, what it was going to cost, and how many people would see the offensiveness sitting in our driveway the entire time we were at church. I knew that God didn't want this to happen, and it was just because we live in an evil, sinful world, but I still couldn't help but think "Who have we offended or made mad for them to do this to us? Will they do it again?" when there were NO OTHER cars on our street that were vandalized. Poor Mary was so sad that someone would do something so horrible to her son and daughter-in-law. Fortunately there were some very awesome praise songs that we sang at church and a terrific sermon (and a random baby gift from one of my very dear prayer warriors) that helped calm me down and think rationally. I realized it could be MUCH, MUCH worse and that it had to have just been a random thing. I kept praying about the situation all through church because I honestly didn't think we had the extra cash laying around to pay for something that could possibly happen more than one time............ God WOULD take care of us because He loved us, but I couldn't fathom how. When we got out of church, Dave and I went straight home while Mary and Jerry picked up our lunch from Subway. We called the police on the way to have them come out and do a police report. They told us to take pictures of the car and then we could try and clean it off while we were waiting for the police to arrive. However, the police never showed up. We just got a call from the department asking us questions about the situation. (Did you know that the police can do a police report over the phone without ever coming out to see anything??? I find that a bit absurd! And, to top it off, to get a print out, you have to go to the department and pay $8 to get it--they can't even mail it to you! Crazy! I guess the shootings ARE probably more important than a vandalized car.....) Here is what I saw when I came around the car that morning (these were the pictures we took for police and insurance purposes)...........

DISCLAIMER:

THESE PICTURES WILL PROBABLY BE OFFENSIVE TO YOU BUT I WANTED TO SHOW YOU WHY I WAS SO HORRIBLY DISMAYED AND ANGRY..... I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE.

Dave, poor Dave. He was actually probably even angrier than I was, but can contain his feelings inside MUCH better than I can. He used all that ANGER to scrub with ALL HIS MIGHT on that car! It was 102 degress (at least) with the sun beating down on him at 1:00 in the afternoon and he was sweating SO HARD! With GOD'S ULTIMATE HELP and a little tool called the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Dave SOMEHOW managed to get every last bit of that permanent marker and blue spray paint off!! (I'm STILL amazed with the spray paint coming off!) I will say that ALL of you need a Magic Eraser! I will be their spokesperson from now on after our car was so CLEAN!!!! What an awesome product! I know Dave was EXTREMELY hot and tired after he got done, but I was SO THANKFUL!!!!!!! THANK YOU, DAVEY!!! I LOVE YOU!! Jerry was such an encouragement to him while he was out there, and the prayers from Mary and I helped tremendoulsy! So, I guess a HORRIBLE morning turned out to be a GREAT afternoon! PRAISE GOD for His GOODNESS in such an EVIL world! He can overcome ANYTHING (even blue spray paint and offensive words on a white car)!!! THANK YOU, JESUS for helping this negative situation turn out with such a positive ending!

(Now we are thinking about installing motion-sensor lights on our garage so this hopefully won't happen again.....that's better than the irrational thoughts that I had that morning to move to Bossier immediately or put ALL the stuff from our garage into a storage unit so we could park our cars inside.....)