You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day

...nor the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday. (Psalm 91:5-6)

Last night, I pulled into Ligonier just as it was five o'clock. So I missed visiting the shops I love, which all close at 5 p.m. But I went into the library to use their bathroom and to look at their Children's Department, as I always do. I picked up some booklists. A librarian was standing at the front desk, putting bookplates into books. I approached her and said that I was driving through and did she know of any uncomplicated places for dinner? She recommended two. I also told her how I was sad to have missed the shops and she mentioned the Holiday Home Store, which stayed open later, but unfortunately was also going out of sale. We chatted a bit longer, and I told her that I was a librarian. She knew of my library, as her mother is a director of a library in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. I thought of giving her my name and asking hers but I decided against it. I went out, in search of the first diner she'd mentioned, which was within walking distance.

Now, one thing that is different about Ligonier at five p.m. in the summer and in the winter is that in the winter, it is dark. Ligonier being a cute small town, this didn't bother me too much.

The diner the librarian recommended only took cash. Luckily, they stated this in a sign on their window. I had been traveling without cash. So, I thought, I could go to the ATM. In the meantime, I went into the Holiday Home Store and found two ornaments. As the store is going out of business, they were both 25% off.

I then walked to my car, pondering whether I wanted to go to the ATM, or just get in the car and see where the other place was that the librarian had recommended. A man was standing by the parked cars by the library and I thought he was a police man at first, putting tickets on the windshields. Surely my hour (for a quarter dollar) hadn't run out yet. He tried to catch my eye and I tried to avoid him. He approached me, and that is when I got in my car. But not before he engaged me in conversation. He was a tall man with a beard and a blue hat. Up close, I could see that he was indeed not a policeman and I noticed that he appeared a little ragged. He asked me if I wanted to go to dinner--the tavern was having a Mexican spread and Ruth's Diner was having a spaghetti dinner. No, I said, I'm just passing through. I had the car door in front of me, as a shield between us. He handed me a piece of paper. It was a tract. At some point he had asked me my name and I had lied, saying it was Sally. Sally, this is information about our Savior, and on the back it has a unique prayer. I hated that I had told him my name, even though it wasn't my name, that he thought he could just use it in conversation, like those spam emails insert your name in the subject line. I said, I already believe in this, as I tried to hand it back to him, and he said, just pass it on. He wanted to know what church I went to and named a few in Pittsburgh. No, I go to the Open Door. Well, fortunately, he hadn't heard of us, and somehow I disengaged myself from this conversation and closed the car door, turned on the car, and bolted out of Ligonier, hungry and creeped out.

I drove and drove and drove, into the darkness, making sure there were miles and miles between myself and this man. I replayed the scenario in my mind, thinking, was this an angel unawares? Was he a harmless lonely man and should I have been more sensitive?

I was haunted. I couldn't let go, replaying the scene in my mind. Finally, as I sat at a Sheetz in Norwin, I called my family to let them know I was still on the road. My mom said, well, call us when you get home.

"Can I run something by you?"
"Sure, honey."

So I told her about the man in Ligonier and how I had made sure the car door was a shield between us and how I had left Ligonier and not turned back but how I was haunted.

"You did the right thing, honey."

Relief flooded me. But how I wish I had a tape recording of my mother saying those words and the words she said after that, encouraging me (giving me courage) and saying that that was stalker behavior. That a person with real intent to evangelize to me would not have violated my personal space, a woman alone at night by her car.

As I write this, I am struck that evangelize has a root in the Greek, which means good news. This man was the opposite--this man was bad news. Harmless he may have appeared, he haunted me all the way home and even this morning when I awoke I couldn't shake the feeling of violation.

Now, perhaps you are reading this and thinking, for crying out loud, Sarah Louise, he did not try to rape you! Give it up and get over it.

But here's the thing: I have a weakness for men. While this man was in no way attractive to me, I have dated men that have violated my personal space in ways that I should have had shields for. If only I had held them at an arms length, with a car door between us for a shield. So while this event did not end tragically, it opened a bag in my closet of all the memories of shame from the past. Reminding me that I have been in worse shape than that before, and that I willingly let these other men into my life.

I get emails from Christianity Today, focusing on women, or the workplace, or books. Today an article caught my eye, called "Remembering to forget." That is what I need! I thought. Although the article did not have any information about how to forget things that had happened to you, things that triggered past shame, this one sentence was helpful:

Satan would lure us to live in guilt and fear. He pulls us into the shadow boxes of memory, in which our worst sins replay on the walls of our minds, flickering with their shameful power …

Which is what has happened. I have been robbed of a few hours in the car and an hour of this morning, haunted by this non-event that happened last night around 5:45 p.m.

The sun is up, and I should go for my walk. Do you know that I couldn't even listen to the throaty voice of Bono this morning, as he sang about this being "The Real Thing." I needed a woman to calm my spirits, so I listened to Shawn Colvin.

In Brent Curtis and John Eldredge's heartbreaking book The Sacred Romance, these moments are called Arrows. There is something that "lays siege to us in...darker hues and brings to it a foreboding that sometimes nags at the edges of out consciousness even on the most sunlit morning. Something fearful stalks us."(14)

******

Lilly just called--she's back home! (She broke her leg before Thanksgiving and was staying at her brother's while she recovered.) We're having dinner tomorrow, hurrah!

***** (11:51 am)

Well, I feel better. I had a walk and even ran into Babs! My dream of getting to work early so I could leave early is not to be...unpacking will have to wait...