#HomeSecurity

*Brace yourselves...this is a long one :)

I used to be able to stay at home by myself all the time. I loved it! But one day in March 2012, I was at home alone and everything changed.

Our house was built in 2008. And my mom worked very hard to get this house built (I’m so proud of her!). Unfortunately…people do not respect your things as much as you do. Our home was broken into every single year…literally…every single year since it was built. As you can imagine, that can start to take a toll on someone’s mental state. I didn’t fully lose my sense of security, because the break-ins never happened when someone was at home. Well…I was at home for spring break during my sophomore year of undergrad; my mom was at work and my brother was at school. That morning, my uncle stopped by to get something from my mom, then left when my mom and brother left. So, I went back to sleep. Around 9:30am, I hear the doorbell ring multiple times. So…I just assume it’s my uncle coming back to grab something. I get up and start walking down the hallway and by that time, they stopped ringing the doorbell. As I get ready to go down the steps to open the door, I hear someone messing with the back-door downstairs. I immediately took off running back down the hall to my room, lock the door, grab my cellphone and jump in my closet. Since I was at home for the week, all my clothes were still at school, so I could easily fit in my closet.

While I’m in the closet, I call 911. I am telling the operator someone is breaking into the house, I’m home alone, send help and I start telling her the address. As I am telling her the address, the backdoor upstairs is kicked open and footsteps start coming down the hallway. I hang up the phone with the operator because I am trying to be quiet, then I hear kicks at my bedroom door. Then…I hear two to three male voices in my room knocking things over and talking. While they are in my room, the 911 operator calls me back. My cellphone starts vibrating, and I am literally trying to silence my phone with one hand and hold the closet door shut with the other hand. As soon as I get my phone to stop ringing, I hear one voice say “Oh Sh**, there’s a B***h in here.” Then, I hear things fall over and they took off running.

I know that God was watching over me, because they recognized that I was in the house, but they didn’t search for me. Instead, they grabbed some items and left. Once I felt like it was safe to come out of my closet, I ran to the bathroom and closed the door and sat in the dark. The good news is, our house alarm went off, so that probably scared them also. At the same time, the 911 dispatcher is still calling me. So I answered it and she says, “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t fully hear your address, which is why I’m calling back. I’ve already dispatched the police anyway”. I learned later, after watching the Halle Berry movie, The Call, that the operators are not supposed to call you back (I definitely should not have gone to see that movie on a date…whoops – triggers are real). The other good news is that our home alarm system called my mom before I did because I didn’t turn the alarm off.

Side note: It’s easier for the police to locate you through a land line (house phone) but with a cellphone it takes a little bit longer because they have to go through cellular towers to track you.

After I hung up with 911, I immediately called my mom and my uncle. As I am hanging up the phone with them, I hear someone yelling “police” in the backyard. I slowly walked out and a lady is standing in my backdoor pointing a gun at me. I tell her that I called and that I’m home alone and she puts the gun away. I try to explain to her what happened, but then my mom and uncle both pulled up at the same time and all of my emotions slowly started flooding in when I saw my mom’s face.

Fast forward to March 2017, unfortunately, our house was broken into about two other times before this, my little brother is at home alone and I pulled up to see our front door open. I immediately jump out of the car (I barely put it in park) and run to the house. The front door is swinging on one hinge…literally just barely hanging on. As I walk up the steps, my brother comes up the hallway with the house phone in his hand. I was so confused, and I started asking him what happened? All he says is “they kicked the door open”. So, I take the phone from him, call 911 and call my mom. Maree didn’t know to call 911 and unfortunately, he turned the house alarm off because he couldn’t take the noise. The police took about 30 minutes to arrive, but by that time, my mom was home and she was able to get a little bit of information out of my brother. The police asked their usually questions, but nothing ever happened after that. (You can see in the photo below that the door frame is detached from the wall and the door is hanging by the top hinge only that's still attached to the wall at the top)

The police never did find the people that broke into our house…ever...not once. But I know that God is all the home security that I need. For years I thought I was crazy because after all of this happened, I couldn’t stay at home alone. For the first few months after it happened back in 2012, I couldn’t handle hearing doorbells or loud knocks at the door. It was a huge trigger and I didn’t know how to process it. Within the last year, I have been at home alone a lot; not overnight, but during the day. I have learned to extend myself some grace because although that happened many, many, many years ago, it still affected me, and before, I didn’t look at how God brought me out of that situation physically unharmed. In the years 2018 and 2019, our house did not get broken into *insert praise hands emoji*

It’s now 2020, and as I look back over everything that has happened with our house, I have learned the importance of prayer and truly trusting God. In 2016, I started praying over our house. I pray over our house every single day. Not long prayers, but prayers of protection and that the enemy and trespassers cannot physically get into our house. When Maree was home alone, they broke the door down, but they didn’t come inside. I know that prayer works. Trespassers literally cannot walk through our door. I finally have some of my peace back. Which is a huge deal when that peace has been disturbed. When you look out of our back door, our backyard is full of trees, and a lot of them are falling. The crazy part is, they’re all falling away from our house. Literally! They are super tall, limp, flimsy looking trees that fall all the time, but they fall away from our house. Not trying to call trees the enemy, but our home is protected from all kinds of attacks, including attacks from mother nature. :)

So…you may not have an issue staying at home alone, but maybe you’re having a hard time trusting God to provide you with peace, protection or security. Mediate on these scriptures below. I pray it helps you! Thanks for reading!

Psalms 71

Proverbs 19:23

Proverbs 30:5

2 Samuel 22:3

2 Samuel 22:31

Romans 5:1

Philippians 4:6-7

1 Peter 5:7

John 16:33

Here's your song for the day :)