Alarms

At 3 a.m, my burglar alarm sounded. Instantly, the pups stood up from their respective curled up sandwich on each side of me and began barking. They jumped off the bed and ran to the front door; well, at least my girl ran to the front door barking furiously, as my boy stretched out lazily at the foot of my bed and growled deeply.

I sat up and shook the cobwebs of sleep off my mind. Catching my breath trying to strain my ears to hear if anyone was in the hallway, I reached over to grab his favorite Lahaina Diver Tshirt I sleep with to comfort me, and threw it over my jammies. Then I ran to get the gun.

I tip-toed by the door and strained in order to hear anything other than the piercing horn of the alarm and the dogs excited baying. I couldn't hear anything else other than my heart pounding. Darn.

The phone rang jarring my senses, and it was the security company telling me that the hallway motion detectors were activated, and was it my dogs? No! my dogs sleep in the room with me. UGH! Ok, police are being called. Then they hung up. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911. Yep, they had not yet received the call from the security company.

I knew the drill; this happened to me more than 2 years ago, but it was real, the perps had come through the laundry window, and I heard them shatter glass when they sped away when police arrived. In fact, they drove right past the police and in front of my neighbors who had heard the shattering glass.

This time, I was prepared with cell phone, gun, and dogs. This time, when my alarm system sounded, I was ready to handle the situation. I waited in the closet with the 911 operators until the police knocked on my window. Only then did I come out of my room, turned off the alarm, and let the police in the house to inspect the premises.

God gives us internal alarm systems that never fail us. Call it sixth sense, or gut instinct. I believe in it 100%. Have you ever met someone or been in a situation where something didn't feel quite right, and it soon revealed itself to be so? That strange, niggling feeling that something is amiss, or doesn't seem to quite make sense. And it always always reveals itself to be exactly the case.

What I learned is this: Trust your instinct; it is a gift from God.
I believe this is part of the Holy Spirit within us; It guides us and tells us what is right and wrong, what is safe and what is dangerous, what is good, what is not healthy. The trick is to separate out the static and the noise from the steady sound of reason.

This second time, I held still and listened through the cacaphony of sounds for the tell-tale voices and footsteps. When I was sure there was nothing, I took the next step of hiding and preparing myself to defend myself and home if need be.

This is the same as listening to our internal alarm system that notifies us that something is not quite right about our bodies or about a person or about a situation. Only when we are still and listen to our internal alarm system, then do we receive the message in how to correctly proceed.

Some people may pooh pooh this and say "oh it is paranoia, or ridiculous, or negative".

What I say is this: what is it about YOUR internal alarm system that makes one have to put the other person down for using this gift from our Higher Power to protect us? Perhaps, it is because it is the very fact that it IS our Higher Power who is telling us that something about the situation or about the person is not quite what it appears; we should be alarmed, be forewarned, and take necessary precautions to protect ourselves from disaster.

God is great; Blessed be His Name. Thank you God for the gift of alarms; internal and external.