"It's Gonna be Okay, Just Pray."

September 17, 2005:

My name is "Elle", I'm 14 years old.

I was babysitting last night, and when the Dad of the family took me home we reached the gate of the community I live in. But when the Dad entered the code I gave him, the gate wouldn't open. He tried again, and again. Still nothing. Finally I started to think, but I didn't have a clue. That's when I saw him. He was walking up to the car, on my side, and I saw him in the mirror. He looked normal, like someone you would see in Walmart, with his polo shirt and jeans. But when he got to my window and I was suddenly staring at a gun I knew he wasn't normal. In an instant he went from the guy who maybe needed directions to the guy who was going to kill me. 

I was three hundred feet away from home.

But I knew I would never go home.

At least, not alive.

I tried to scream, yell, say anything to get the Dad's attention away from the keypad and onto the gun that was just on the other side of the glass window.

Nothing.

I knew I was going to die.

And the man with the gun in front of me confirmed it.

I looked at him, begging with my eyes.

He didn't care. He simply stared.

I could not do or say or move anything, so I just waited.

And waited.

And waited...

But he never pulled the trigger. 

I didn't hear the shot. 

All I know is one second I am staring down the barrel of a pistol, and the next we are slamming into a tree.

The Dad tried to make a break for it, but the SUV couldn't make the turn. 

The guy approached the Dad who asked, "What do you want?"

"Everything!" the guy yelled.
The Dad, an undercover cop, looked at me asking, pleading, "What do you have?" 
Just a Sony cd player, and some English homework.
I didn't have anything...
I saw fear in his eyes. 
But he was a cop... Cops aren't supposed to be afraid.
But he didn't have a plan, he didn't have a clue, we didn't have help.

We were dead.

Fear rose in his voice as he told the guy, "That's all we have."

Tears swelled as I realized I was never going to see my family again, and they were comfortably watching a movie not three hundred feet away. If I turned around I would have seen my house.

I was a dead girl. 

Next thing I know, the car is moving again, gunshots are fired, and I'm ducking into my lap as I hear the Dad scream, "Stay down!" 

The robber got in a getaway car where another man waited as a driver. 

But they weren't expecting us to chase them.

More gunshots. More screaming for me to stay low. More tears.

I'll shorten the story and end it with this: 

We chased the guy, as he continued to shoot at us, but we lost him. 

The Dad called for backup, but backup didn't believe us, and then they couldn't find us. 

I could hear the helicopter revving as the shots kept firing. 

I could hear the sirens as I heard the tires burning.

I could hear the Dad screaming as I kept crying.

I could hear a God, one I grew up knowing about my entire life but never really knowing, tell me, "It's gonna be okay, just pray." 

The next day, after we crashed the car into a wall--which is what mostly caused us to lose the chase and the guys--I got a call to come back to the house where I just babysat not twelve hours before.

A gunshot was found above the SUV's symbol where a bullet had traveled through two rows of seats and a bullet was seen to have stopped right behind mine.

A miracle. A sign. Proof that the God I knew about, and would later come to personally know, was trying to tell me, 

"It's gonna be okay, just pray."

Not a month later, two girls at my high school died in a horrible, head-on collision. 

I had never experienced or known death before the night I was almost killed, and now I saw it's aftermath. 

And it didn't help that one of them was a friend of my sister's, the other was the sister of a friend.
That's what started the nightmares, visions, sensations of being followed.

One time I was in my Health Class when I saw a tombstone with my name on it at the front of the class as clear as you're reading these words.
Another time I saw myself in an open coffin laying on the floor in my bedroom.

I constantly was watching my back, because it sometimes felt like Death was still chasing me...

I'm now almost 24, but sometimes that 14 year old comes out of hiding.

Sometimes she gets afraid, and locks up.

I was afraid that people would not protect me, so I learned how to protect myself. 

I built walls out of fear, and dressed in dark clothes and gothic makeup to make people stay away.

I'm careful to pick and choose, of my friends, who can come how close to me and who can know what.

I became afraid to speak up, speak out, and would only do so if I knew no one would challenge me.
I lived in fear of man for nine years, but I'm ready to be free.

While I am mostly free from the memories, the nightmares, the strongholds, the whatever you want to call it's, I'm not entirely there yet. 

Fear still tries to hang on, but it cannot hold on.

Not forever.

Not for long...

Had I have dealt with these things sooner, maybe talked more, spoke up when I hurt, shared when I had a nightmare or a vision, maybe I would be more confident, maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would be healed, but life is about the process. 

There's no such thing as "perfect people", but in Christ I am made perfect by being made whole.

It's a struggle that I deal with daily, but the more I learn to trust Him, and learn to trust and remember that He really was there that night the easier things get.

See, I spent the first eight years wondering why God let that happen.

Why didn't he stop the bullet sooner?

Why did he even let the guy reach such a point of desperation that he tried to kill two innocent people over money?

Why did he let us crash the car, but we walked away with no cuts, no bruises, no injuries. Nothing.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Nine years later, I finally figured out that "Why?" doesn't get you anywhere but in asking more "Why's?" 

But asking, "What?" or "How?" or "Who?" or "Where?"  can make all the difference.

What can I do to not allow this fear to take a root in my life that will later rule me and cause me to fight it nine years later?

How do I learn to let things go when they truly hurt, and I want to hold on because I like this attention of being a victim even though I will soon after want to become a victor?

Who can I trust with this pain, these memories, these fears that I don't want to share for fear of someone thinking I am crazy to have said I just saw my own deathbed?

Where do I go from here?

I was walking a life that was not marked by Christ or His love.

I didn't know what freedom was because I was afraid to let anyone in, even Jesus.
Sure, I let Him in my life in some areas, but that whole "become the LORD of my life" thing only applied to certain areas of my heart.
Yeah I would sing, "Father, King of my heart..." but that didn't mean He could be the ruler over the areas I didn't want Him to see, like that painful point of trusting Him to protect me in every situation. And if He did protect me, it was usually at the last second, so I may as well do my best to protect myself so I don't reach that point. Again.
I didn't know freedom, so I didn't know life.

It's been a painful journey, especially these last four years because that's when I finally got smart and realized that to say Jesus is the LORD of my life means He is the LORD over EVERYTHING. And He really does have my best interest in mind. He really does love me. He really does care for me. 
He didn't want me to go through that, but He has a plan and a purpose on how to use that for good AFTER I let Him in my walls and let Him heal my broken heart.

My name was Elle.
Which is actually short for the name of  yours truly, the author and blogger of this site.
You see, my name is my destiny.
My name means "Honor and Victory", literally.
As I said, I WAS a dead girl.
But now I am a daughter to the King of Kings.
I am a Joy Bomber.
I am a work in progress to better understand and receive God's love and grace.
I am a Sin City Saint.
I am an ambassador of truth and faithfulness.
I am FREE.

I was a dead girl, but now I am ALIVE.

So the next time you feel like Death is on your doorstep, or fear is trying to creep back in, or you're faced with an impossible situation and it feels like there is no way out, please just remember these simple words from our loving Father in Heaven:


"It's gonna be okay, just pray."

[Ezekiel 37]

[1 John 4:18]

-Saint