The Night God Protected Me, A Single Mom From Her Intruder

This really happened to me…the BIN author…50 shades of pissed off…..it happened this year …Im a 36 yr old single mom of one 7 yr old boy who lives alone with my son.

I don’t often write about my personal life or my own experiences but every once in awhile I will if I feel it’s important enough. 

About 7-8 months ago I had a really scary situation happen. I woke up in the middle of the night around 2:30am…I got up to go to the bathroom…(which I NEVER do by the way.. after I fall asleep I’m usually down for the night…). So to wake up at 2:30am to get up and go to the bathroom….and then on top of that for some odd reason I used the hall bathroom instead of just using the one in my room….that had to have been God….because me waking up and using the hall bathroom in the middle of the night had probably never happened once in the 6 years I had lived there. 

So after I turned on the light and went to the bathroom I sat there quietly for quite a long time playing a stupid game on my phone….when suddenly I heard a cough from right outside my bathroom window… It was a single cough and it sounded like the person had tried to do it quietly and muffle it. 

I lived in a duplex in a court in a residential area…I liked the location because I felt safe being tucked back in there with houses all around and behind me. No foot traffic and no way to reach my backyard without hopping several fences and going through other fenced backyards.  Only way to get back to where my bathroom window was in my backyard would have been to enter through my gate which was high and almost always locked with a heavy duty bolt lock you needed a key for. 

Only problem was that somehow the wood on my gate had recently stretched or expanded or something weird and I hadn’t been able to close or lock the gate in a couple weeks. 

So I’m in my bathroom…and I hear this cough… my head whipped towards the sound…towards that window. Immediately my brain starts trying to rationalize it…but after quickly running through all possible scenarios in my head I realized I couldn’t…I knew what I had heard. And I knew what it meant. 

So I checked on my son…then went and got my shotgun. Mossberg 20 gage with a pistol grip.

In crucial moments like that it’s weird because you know instinctively what you need to do. I knew without any hesitation that I needed to let this creeper know that I knew he was there. 

So with my heart pounding out of my chest I stepped into the bathtub to get as close to the window as possible and racked the slide on my shotgun as loud and as hard as I could and yelled “I know you’re there and if you don’t leave now I’m going to f**cking shoot you!!” 

About 20 seconds later I heard my gate creak….as if someone had opened it to leave…I sat there for awhile longer listening and didn’t hear anything else….

So I locked my bedroom door (my son was in there sleeping with me) and I went back to sleep my shotgun within reach.  I figured if that didn’t scare the lurker off then he was extremely stupid. 

The next morning I told one of my neighbors I had heard someone in my backyard outside my bathroom window the night before and asked him if he could help me get my gate shut so I could lock it. He helped me get it shut and I put the bolt lock on it again.  

That next night before bed I went around to all of the doors and windows to make sure they were all locked and when I got to that bathroom window and went to fasten the lock it completely fell off in my hand. 

There were two locks on that window and both of them had been completely unscrewed…Im still not sure how it had been done…someone who had to have known some thing about how those windows were made….but they were both just hanging there…they fell off easily into my hand.  

That’s when I realized that I must have walked into my bathroom right as he had finished un-screwing both locks and was about to come in my window. 

When I had turned on the bathroom light he obviously stopped and sat there under my window for a long time…probably waiting for me to turn off the light and go back to bed. I had sat there silently playing a game on my phone for so long he must have thought I had left the room and it was ok to let out a small cough. 

If I hadn’t heard him cough quietly like he did, that’s exactly what would have happened. I would have turned off the light and went back to bed.  

And I can’t even tell you if I’d be here right now. Because this guy was breaking into my house knowing I was home….which means he intended to do more than just rob me. Burglars who just want to rob you don’t break in when you’re home. 

God was looking out for me. He had to have woken me up and prompted me to use that  hall bathroom at 2:30am. If it weren’t for that I don’t know what would have happened.  

The gravity of it really began to hit me and I had a hard time even allowing myself to think much about it because of how serious and scary the implications were.  

Although I think I know who it might have been. The day before there were some workers working on one of my neighbors yard. A neighbor across the street had just moved out so their prop mgmt company had hired a contracting company to clean up the yard before they put it back on the market. 

When I pulled into my garage after picking my son up from school my son said, “Mom…someone’s coming up the driveway”. 

It was a greasy looking black guy who looked to be in his late 30′s who asked me in ebonics if I wanted my lawn mowed. 

My grass was really long because someone had recently stolen my nice new lawn mower a friend had given me. Stolen it off my front porch where I’d stupidly left it for a day after mowing my lawn. I lived in a pretty safe neighborhood and I’d put the mower behind a big column on my porch so it couldn’t be seen from the street. I’m not sure how they saw it. (I kind of suspect the teenager who lived next door. Because there was another situation where I think he may have siphoned my friends  gas. And packages had disappeared off my porch before. His house was the only one who had the view to be able to see behind my big porch column when they walked up to go in their front door.)

Anyways so I asked this black guy “How much?” 

He looked me up and down really deliberately, and replied “For you? $10.” 

I ignored his obvious attempt at hitting on me and said “Okay just knock on my door when you’re done.”

So when he was done he knocked on my front door and I paid him $15. His eyes were bloodshot and the way he looked at me was cold and unsettling. 

A little bit later my son’s little brother’s mom (his half brother…same dad, different mom) dropped his little brother Emiliano off so I could watch him while she went and did errands. They wanted to ride their scooters in the court so I went out there to watch them. 

The same guy who’d mowed my lawn was still across the street at my neighbors house  working on the yard there. I could feel him staring at me and watching me but I just ignored him and acted like he wasn’t there. 

But in my head I thought to myself, “That’s the kind of guy who comes back later”. 

I’ve watched enough shows on the Investigation Discovery channel to know it’s often someone like that who just happens to see you and notice you live there alone. 

I had stupidly said something off handedly to him about not being able to mow my lawn since my lawn mower got stolen….which made it clear to him that I mowed the lawn myself….which probably made it apparent that there was no male living there with me and that it was just me.

Anyways so it was that very next night after he mowed my lawn that this happened. 

I filed a police report and told the cop who I thought it might have been but of course I had no proof. 

But it had to have been him. I pretty much kept to myself and not many people knew I lived there alone. I couldn’t think of anyone else it could possibly be.

The dude was there working on my neighbors house again after the incident and in a moment of anger I almost walked up to ask him his name and what company he worked for so I could add it to my police report, but I ended up chickening out. Something inside told me not to have any more interaction with the guy.  

But my point to this story is that if you’re a female or a single mom who lives alone and you dont own any firearms, you are a sitting duck to anyone who’s physically stronger than you….especially adding in the element of surprise…. 

Owning guns changes everything….I feel so much safer knowing I can protect myself and my child if I have to… And anyone who wants to take that right away from me is out to harm me plain and simple.  

Only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun..
is a good guy with a gun…and no matter the law… bad guys will always have guns… 

I love this 60 second NRA commercial featuring Dana Loesch titled “Moms Like Me”

And also this Glock Commercial titled

“Somebody Picked the Wrong Girl”

Although in all reality… my gun probably wouldn’t have mattered much without God’s protection.
 
HE woke me up at the deepest hour of the night. 
HE prompted me to enter that hall bathroom and turn on the light. 
HE’s the reason I sat there quietly for so long and heard that man cough. 

He protected my life…and the life of my son. There’s simply no other explanation.

If you’re interested in reading another personal story of mine this is one of the only other ones I’ve written.  

How a Young Blonde Party Girl Woke Up And What God Showed Her About Those Who Can See