It’s a briskly clear, lazy spring afternoon in 1995. The leaves haven’t yet begun to bud on the trees. The sun is warmly shining through the window of the mobile home where I live with my first roommate, Darrell. He’s in his late twenties, a muscular guy, over six feet tall; he can handle himself. He’s employed at the Greene County Juvenile Justice Center, a juvenile prison. Today is my day off from work. I’m currently listening to music while sprawled out on the sofa. Darrell has been home for a while after running some errands and we are both bored, not having accomplished anything of importance since lunchtime. “Hey, let’s go shooting!” Darrell curiously suggests. We’ve never gone shooting together. Darrell has a heavy steel frame, foreign-made 9 mm Glock knock-off handgun. I have an old 1919 Spanish Mauser in .308 that my dad and I had converted into a hunting rifle. “Where would we go?” I ask. “How about Busiek?” Darrell suggests, “They have a shooting range there.” “Ok, sounds good to me.” I reply, “I have some targets I’ll bring.” I couldn’t think of anything better to do and we have a few more hours of daylight to burn, not to mention it’s been a while since I’ve had any target practice. We gather our things, hop in Darrell’s truck, and gleefully headed toward our destination, Busiek State Park. We have no idea how significant this decision to spend our afternoon at the range would be.
Darrell’s a pretty casual guy most of the time. He regularly dwells on the goofy side of life, singing off key on purpose, telling jokes, or quoting movies in funny voices. The ride this day was no different. You would think that we’re a couple of adolescent boys the way we carry on. The shooting range is quiet and empty when we arrive. The wind is gently blowing and you can faintly hear birds, squirrels and other animals in the nearby woods. We set up our targets down range and pace off the distance as we walked back to shoot. We take turns shooting the handgun and the rifle at different ranges between twenty-five and one hundred yards. The shots rang out; cracking through the air like thunder, and at each pause not a sound was heard but the breeze against our ears, because of the earplugs we were wearing. It’s just before dusk now. While we’re taking a break to reload, a small brown pickup came barreling down the gravel road that leads to the shooting range. It spins around in the dead end parking area, the passenger door flies open, and a woman tumbles out of the vehicle. She hits the ground running, straight toward us. With a look of horror on her face, she’s frantically yelling something unintelligible. We take out our earplugs as the truck leaves on a cloud of dust. As the woman runs across the nearby footbridge, we hear her yelling desperately, “Can you help me? Can you help me?? You have to help me!?!” She fiercely repeats these words over and over again along with, “You’re not with him are you?”
“Ma’am, you’re gonna have to calm down.” Darrell says in a low soothing voice.
“Oh God, you gotta help me!” she repeats frantically, tearfully looking back down the road as if she expected the truck to return.
“Take a deep breath, calm down, and tell us what happened,” Darrell replies.
“This guy was giving me a ride and told me things he wanted to do to me…” she tells us, anxiously shaking.
“What kind of things, was he going to hurt you?” Darrell asks.
“Yea,” she continues, “I think he was gonna rape me and when I told him to let me go, he said he was gonna come out here and kill me! You have to help me!”
“We’ll help you,” I tell her assuredly, “it will be okay.”
Darrell interjects, “We’ll take you to the sheriff’s office.”
Darrell and I quickly grab our belongings and we all got into his truck. “I think you scared him off,” she calmly says.
I ask her, “Do you remember his name? Did you know him?”
“Could you describe him to the police?” Darrell adds.
“Yea, uh huh, I met him at my work. I work at a convenience store, and he delivers snacks there. I think he got scared when he saw you guys. I think that’s why he drove off,” she replies. “I think you saved my life! I’m really lucky you were here!”
Darrell chimes in, “You know, I don’t think it was a coincidence that we were out here today. I think God wanted us to be out here. Jeremy and I don’t come out here; in fact, this is the first time we’ve gone shooting out here.”
“He’s right. We never come out here. We just decided to do this at the last minute today because we were bored!” I add.
“No… it was God…” she says, “I know it was God.”
We had no idea how significant this decision to spend our afternoon at the range would be. We just went. We didn’t know that a man would threaten a woman with bodily harm and drive her there. We just went.
Some people would chalk up this kind of event to coincidence. Fate. Luck. But I don’t. I believe it was providential that Darrell and I went to the shooting range that lazy spring afternoon back in 1995. I believe that God was trying to speak to someone through this situation (at the very least, it spoke to me). Do I mean that God orchestrated the events? No, not explicitly. I don’t believe God is a puppet master, pulling the stings of people so they do whatever He wants. I do believe some people have cut themselves off from God in an attempt to be their own master and the marionette of their own fate. But by attempting this impossibility, they only get themselves tangled up in strings and bound by someone far more sinister than self (Isaiah 66:3-4, 1 Peter 5:8).
You cannot deny that there is evil in the world, you only have to turn on the news for a few minutes to see it (Job 5:7, Jeremiah 17:9, Proverbs 21:10). As long as this reality exists, we will always have bad things happen. When they do, many people will ask: why? Others use it as a rally cry for action. Often eighteenth century philosopher Edmund Burke is quoted. He said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” I believe this is true on several levels. But for a Christian, I believe this could be as simple as not listening or looking for those sometimes-small opportunities to do something seemingly meaningless outside of our daily habits. I have learned that often these are the times that we are given the opportunity to do something we may have not done if left to ourselves.
Further reading: Roman 5:12, 1 Peter 4:12, John 16:33, Luke 18:19, Romans 8:28, Matthew 6:33
Addendum
Recently, I was at a coffee shop with a friend having a Bible study. We noticed a man walking back and forth in front of the shop, occasionally talking to himself. He looked distraught. As he walked further down the street, my friend asked if we could pray for him, and we did. My friend prayed that if God were to use us to interact with this man, that we would have wisdom.
Several minutes later, the man returned and after a moment of standing with his back to us, he looked at my friend and asked, “Can I have your coffee?” Confused, he asked him if he wanted his coffee or if he wanted us to buy him a coffee. After several questions, we learned that he was trying to get a coffee, but he didn’t have the money. A man from a nearby table came over and gave him a few dollars and my friend pitched in and offered for him to join us. He said he would as he left to but his drink.
After some time, the man walked past us on his way, we offered again for him to join us, but he became spooked at the noise of a chair being moved and said he needed to go. My friend asked him what his name is an he replied “Derrick.” While he continued to walk away, my friend looked puzzled, then surprised. The he showed me his coffee cup. The barista had put the wrong name on his drink. She had put the name Derrick (pictured above). Eerie coincidence? I don’t completely understand the significance of this encounter, and I may never, but don’t think so. Perhaps there will be another chapter to this story…
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