Today could have been the most horrifying and terrifying day of my life, but praise Jesus it wasn’t!!
If you’ve ever been to Walmart (and I’m sure you have) than you’ve seen the big bulletin boards they have at the front of the store with posters of missing children. My kids like to look at them. I think mostly because they are drawn to the pictures of other kids. That bulletin board is a scary reminder to me that every day children are abducted.
This afternoon my middle boys and my niece were outside at my mom’s house riding their scooters in the cul-de-sac….the front door was open and I was in the kitchen going over school work with Carlos……the kitchen with huge windows that overlook the cul-de-sac. Jadyn was napping and Natalie had gone with my mom to take my nephews to their swim practice.
I finished up with Carlos and went outside, because I had told Ben I would watch him ride his scooter. The first thing I noticed was the eerie quiet. No kids, no scooters. One quick glance around the front of the house told me that they weren’t there, so I headed to the back. No kids. I checked the basement. No kids. I checked the front again thinking perhaps they were just one step ahead of me. No kids. I started to feel panicky. I was running out of places to look. I yelled to my sister and she joined me in the search. No kids. My sister ran up the road (but the kids never go up the road by themselves) to look and we were both yelling their names. My mom came back and we asked if she had seen the kids on her drive into the neighborhood……nope.
How can three little kids just disappear…..poof……gone. This is truly a mama’s worst nightmare. I looked back in all places again just in case they were hiding in the house (my kids love hide-n-seek). My sister came back and took the car to search the neighborhood. And I made a call no parent ever, EVER wants to make. I called 911……”I’m calling because my kids are missing.” The horror of that moment! Not just the thought that perhaps they had ridden too far into the neighborhood and gotten confused and lost in the streets, but the realization that there was no physical way that they could have made it out of the neighborhood without meeting up with my mom coming back into the neighborhood. That left only one possibility and I would not let my mind go there……someone has taken my kids!
As I was trying desperately to remember my mom’s street address to give the 911 operator, out of the front door of a house across the street come three little kids. They never looked so beautiful!!
They had gone to visit Ali and Sam……the hedgehogs. Thank you Jesus! What was lost has been found! The relief knowing they were safe is indescribable. “I found them, I found them.” I screamed in pure joy. My babies were ok, they were safe, they had not been taken.
This day could have ended so much differently than just visiting the hedgehogs, but I’m so VERY thankful it did not.
Day 5 in operation “survive Stephen’s mission trip” complete!
House of Smooches 