It was Tuesday night, and it was just the dog and I at home. My family and I were originally planning on going to a revival meeting in San Jose, but I chose to stay home with our sick dog who had just been released from the hospital at 5:30 that evening. After taking care of some chores around the house, I was sitting on the couch taking care of some business on the computer and also texting back and forth with my younger sister. (multi-tasking – LOL) It was around 9:30 p.m. when suddenly, I heard our side gate open. It’s very easy to recognize the sound of our side gate, because the wood scrapes against the concrete pavement when you push it open. My heart gave a start, and I wondered who in the world would be coming through our gate and into our backyard.
Immediately, I looked over at the latch on the sliding glass door that leads out to the backyard and saw to my horror that it was in the unlocked position. I quickly got up, went to the door, slammed down the latch and pulled the drawstring to close the curtain that hangs over the door. The dog was also barking about this time too, for which I was glad. “Maybe whoever is out there will hear her and get scared away.”, I thought to myself. I also remembered that our latch doesn’t always work properly, and sometimes it doesn’t lock on the first attempt. Swiftly, I pushed with all my might against the door handle in case it was still unlocked. That way, if someone tried to open it, they would feel the resistance and hopefully assume that that meant the door was locked. As I stood there listening with my heart pounding, 2 Timothy 1:7 popped into my mind. Mi corazon was still rapidly palpitating, but I silently thanked Jesus for reminding me of the verse. I tried not to make a sound and just listen, but what I heard puzzled me.
It sounded like somebody was doing something with the water spigit which is right next to the door. It seemed kind of odd to me that somebody would be messing around with the water. It was definitely way too late for someone from Diablo Water District to be in the backyard, and why would they be back there anyway? The activity in the backyard probably only lasted a minute at the most. Then I heard the scraping sound of the gate again, and all was silent.(except for my heart, which sounded like lots of cannon booms in succession)I stood there probably about 3 minutes still braced against the door handle and wondering if I should let go. I finally let go and decided to text my sister. “Hey, could you pray for me? I just heard the side gate open and someone was in our backyard. I’m pretty sure they’re gone now, but that sure scared the liver out of me.” Questions came to my mind. Should I call the police? Should I call one of our neighbors? I was a little unarmed by the incident, but oddly enough, I wasn’t really worried. A couple of minutes later, I get a call from my daughter. “Mom, are you okay?” she asked. “Yeah, why?” I replied. Now that was a stupid answer. Obviously she would not be calling now unless my sister had gotten ahold of her. She is very close to my sister.(her aunt) I explained to my daughter what happened, and my husband was talking in the background too and said that he was going to call our neighbor Bill to have him come check the backyard. I hung up with Jen, telling her I would call back in a few minutes. Bill came to the door with his flashlight, and we purused the yard together. As I looked around, I noticed the black hose was neatly coiled and reattached to the water spigit. I knew it was not there earlier, because I went to use it the day before and noticed it wasn’t there. At that time, I thought maybe my husband had taken the hose off to use it somewhere else. Anyhow, as I saw the hose there, I had a hunch. Someone from our church had borrowed our shop vac a couple of days ago, and maybe my husband had loaned them our hose too. I called my husband back, explained my hunch and asked him if anyone had borrowed our hose. He said, “No, not that I know of. Wait a minute, let me ask Paul.” I heard them talking in the background and Paul explaining that yes, someone from the church had been using the hose. My husband came back on the phone and said, “Let me call Bro. So and so to confirm and see if he did return the hose.” A few minutes later, the hubby calls me back. Bro. So and so’s kind, conscientious son decided to come over and return our hose, thinking that all of us had gone to San Jose. After all, my husband had announced the revival in church and opened it up to whoever wanted to go.
The neat thing about this whole scenario is that even though my heart accelerated during the incident, God brought the Scripture in 2 Timothy to my mind and also a message I had just heard at Pacific Coast Camp preached by Bro. Frazier entitled The Spirit Of Fear. Y’all that went to camp remember that one? If it wasn’t for those 2 things, I think I would have been way more unnerved and almost panicky. Thank God for His Word and for putting a little excitement and laughter into my evening! 
