Under His Wings

A personal story of God’s protection in a mighty way.

God protects us in ways we may never realize:

I have my own story of God’s protection over 10 years ago that I didn’t even know I needed until the situation was over.

At the time, I was working at a firm in a downtown high rise office building on the top floor.  The majority of the time, I brought my lunch and ate in my office with the door closed.  I tried to go out about one day a week and this just so happened to be a Friday (yay, end of the work week).  I was going to grab a quick bite and shop a little at IKEA.  Sounds like a fun lunch, right?

When I was a few minutes from my lunch spot, I got a call from a co-worker telling me not to come back to the building as there had been a shooting.  A shooting, in a professional office building!  Our entire building was locked down and the firm was all locked in (we had the entire floor).  There was not much else to go on at that time as they didn’t know where the shooter was.  Oh my!  I didn’t know what to do.  I could only hear about it on the radio and from people talking at tables near me at lunch.

I quickly called my husband to tell him I was out of the building in case he heard about the incident.  Since I couldn’t go back to the office and didn’t know a lot of what was going on, I started heading home.  My cell phone started ringing with friends calling to check on me.  My immediate answer was “I’m out of the building” instead of saying “hello.”  The major interstate I would have been traveling on to go home was shut down, so I had to take another route.  It normally would have taken me about 30 minutes or so to get home this way, but all the roads were a mess with traffic rerouted off the interstate.  I think it took me well over an hour to finally pull into my garage.  As soon as I got in the house, I immediately turned on the news.

Here’s what happened:  A disgruntled former employee came into the building and went to his former office and started shooting.  One employee, a young man, was talking to the receptionist when the shooter came in.  Sadly, he was in the line of fire and didn’t make it.  The shooter continued shooting and several others were wounded.  Then he left.  The police were there pretty quickly and went floor by floor looking for him.  They didn’t realize he had left the building and the interstate was shut down because they didn’t know where he was.  It wasn’t long before they caught the shooter at his mother’s place and arrested him.

That’s not the end of my story.  The next week, one of the maintenance guys in the building told me that God was really watching out for me or that angels were around me (something like that…I can’t remember his exact words, but that’s what he meant).  A few days later, the main building lobby video surveillance was available online for anyone to view (not of the shooting).  What I saw still gives me chills.  The shooter came in the front door and walked out of camera view on his way to the elevators.  As soon as he went out of view, I walked into the camera view heading out of the building!  I passed him on my way out…maybe almost shoulder to shoulder! 

Also, when I got to the floor where I usually park, I realized I was on another floor that day and had to get back in the parking garage elevator to get to my car.  Little did I know what was going on as I left the building.  I was probably one of the last people to get out of the parking garage before everything was locked down.

God had a hedge of protection around me the entire time!  Thank you, Lord, for watching over me!  He was protecting so many others that day as well.  The co-worker who had called me about the shooting had been riding up the elevator and talking with the young man who was fatally shot just minutes later.  So sad.

You just don’t realize what a day may hold and how many times the Lord is protecting us.  I’m so thankful for his loving arms around me.

Do you have an incident to share where you know without a doubt that God was protecting you?  Leave a comment below.

Dear Heavenly Father: Thank you for being our refuge and protection even when we don’t realize there are dangers all around us.  You know what lays ahead of us and your protective shield covers us in big and small ways.  We are in awe of how you care for us and watch over us every minute of every day.  May we always be thankful that your loving arms are around us.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.