Point & Shoot

You know that gut feeling you get that something’s not right?

It’s this deep-sitting stone that sits in your stomach and no matter what you do, you can’t shake it out.

That’s what I had all day today.

I thought it was due to the book I was reading, “Th1rteen R3asons Why” by Jay Asher which, though rightfully award-winning-worthy and a page-turner, is by no means an easy read.

I thought it was due to the movie I just caught a screening of this morning. Spellbound, a korean flick which though is an adorable romantic comedy, also happens to be a pretty freaky horror flick.

I thought it was due to traffic ticket I rightfully got this afternoon for texting while driving which SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, is a stupid thing to do while on the road and you should NEVER participate in it. You can text “lol” after you’ve parked.

But nope, I do believe that impending doom of a gut feeling I felt was warning me about what was to happen tonight.

My friend Melly and I stopped by LoveLetter, a Korean pizza and fried chicken joint in Cerritos to catch up. Amidst hearing all about Melly’s new venture, NewMediaRockstar, and what Audrey Magazine has coming up for our Spring issue, this man with a black beanie covering his face strides up to our table waving a gun in the air.

“Go to the back. Go to the kitchen,” he says, poking Melly with the gun. He then turns the gun to me, “You too.”

We head to the back, a million thoughts racing through my heads. I head towards the melodramatic so I was thinking something along the lines of, “oh no, he’s gonna shoot, he’s gonna shoot, hey I’m passing a butcher knife, what if he uses that to slice us all to death, should I take that up and slice him up instead? Why is he herding us to the kitchen, does he want to burn the kitchen down?”

Then prayer settled in.

Because sometimes in life, there is nothing you can do but kneel to God and pray as hard as you can to be at his mercy and grace (which he always gives abundantly and righteously). There’s no right move or wrong move in this situation because you really have no idea how crazy the man is, what his motives are, how fast or slow he is, how many people are helping him, etc etc. All you can do is pray.

At that, a calm settles over when you leave it all to the hands of God.

Praise the Lord for granting not a bullet to sound in that restaurant that night, not a person hurt (except for this poor elderly lady who fainted). Praise the Lord for the robber to only leave with the restaurant’s cash. Our stuff was left untouched, can you believe it? Praise the Lord for this alarm ringing that life is short. It can all change in the blink of an eye. Not a lot of people live with that at the forefront of their attention and they need to.

NOW is the time to tell your dear ones you love them and to love them, actually love them. NOW is the time to ask for forgiveness. NOW is the time to forgive. NOW is the time to be bold and daring. NOW is the time to search. NOW is the time to act. NOW is the time to take a vacation.

Thank you all for your love and support. I didn’t mean to tweet the gunpoint holdup but I wasn’t thinking very clearly and it seemed like something two new media generation kids would do. But I didn’t want to worry you all with such a cursory footnote of what happened so here is a more detailed version of what happened.

My hands are still kind of shaky as I type this and my heart is still flopping around a bit but I thank God for this wake up call.

Let’s start living. <3

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

posted by Janice | Comment: 3 | God, Personal

If you enjoyed this article please consider sharing it!