You remember the game kids play called "Red-light, Green Light?" There's a person who gets to "direct traffic" calling out "Red-light?" to make you stop, "Green-light" to allow you to move and some might even throw in a "Yellow-light" to make you slow down. Well, God kinda works with signals similar to that game. A lot of times you don't notice the signs until you look back at your life.
I'll give you an example from my own life. Around June '09, I remember God bustin out with one of them yellow-light signals on me. I had been dealing with the hurt I stored deep within myself by trying to drown it out with alcohol - even drinkin up to 5 days a week. Anyways, I woke up one morning after a long night out that I hardly remembered. That wasn't unusual. The yellow-light to me was the fact that I had to go hunt for my car because I didn't remember where I parked, let alone the drive home. I think that was God tellin me I needed to chill out if I valued my life. So, I slowed down a bit, but I still battled my need to drink my pain away. That need caught up with me again January 9, 2010. And that was a night I will never remember, but a morning I will never forget.
My Red-Light Story:
I remember meeting up with my boyfriend in the early evening, right after work on the 9th.We were gonna kick it with some friends he hadn't seen in awhile. The night started out great. We had our lil fire pit blazin away; we had our liquor; and the company was good too. My last memory of that night was a good ol' game of spades. Then I woke up.
I found myself in an unfamiliar room which I quickly assessed to be a hospital room. Already, I figured I must have been in a car accident. It's sad, but it was almost as if I had expected this day to come, so I wasn't really freaked out....YET.
I called my mom and let her know I was in the hospital, (actually the nurse called her for me) then I called my job to let 'em know I wouldn't be in that day. Then, I called my boyfriends phone. It went straight to voice-mail. I tried a few more times before I was wheeled off to surgery to fix my broken eye socket.
When I woke up, there were family and friends sitting and standing around. I knew I must have been really busted up even though I hadn't seen myself because each person was being much too careful of their facial expressions. Most of that day, I was in an out of consciousness thanks to the morphine.
The next morning is the one I'll never forget. My dad walked into my hospital room followed by a woman I wasn't familiar with. He introduced her as the hospital chaplain which made my heart seem to speed up and stop simultaneously. My dad had this look on his face was definitely on the verge of trying to be comforting, but, in fact, had the opposite effect. He started to tell me that he found out that I had had a passenger with me in the accident, and then he paused. I was trippin already and the pause didn't help, so I tell him to hurry and tell me who it was. He told me it had been my boyfriend which confused me because we had driven own separate cars to his friends how that night...but I was like "okaaaay..."thinking there must be more to it, as anxiety began to take hold of me. He finished by telling me that David had passed away. I didn't want to believe him so I screamed that he was lying; all the while, I felt the hand of despair curl it's poisonous fingers around my heart and apply a pressure that I could feel all the way to my soul. I didn't recognize the sounds coming from within as my entire body trembled and I didn't just cry - I wept. There is no physical pain that can match or exceed the pain that came with that news. I only calmed down after the doctor came, with a sedative that I tried to turn away. Then, all I felt was emptiness...completed by a side of pure nothingness.
Later that same day… Not knowing it was possible that my life could get any worse, I was arrested, taken to the police station, and booked for 2nd Degree Murder based on the dangerousness of the car accident - My first time in trouble with the law. Now, almost a year later, I lay writing this in my prison cell at the very beginning of a 10 year sentence that was attached to the 2nd Degree Murder charge that will be with me even longer.
I admit that when all this first happened, I was beyond angry with God. Like, what evil have I ever done to anyone to deserve all this - all at once. But then, I opened my eyes and saw that the devil tried to take me out in that car accident, and it's only cause of God that I'm alive and able to walk today.
Along with this Red-Light - the unlimited amount of time you have to think during incarceration - God has brought me an insurmountable degree of enlightenment that I wouldn't trade for my freedom. The lessons God had tried to get me to learn that I never took the time to pay attention to were brought into focus. God has His way of takin you out the game when you’re off doin your own thing - when you're bout to get yourself killed. He sits you down and makes it so you can catch up on the lessons He's trying to teach you. Because without the lessons you so ignorantly missed, you will not move forward, will not make it to the level you need to be on; the level God needs you on in order for Him to be able to open the door to your destiny. So you betta make sure you pay close attention and recognize when there's a lesson to be learned. If you don't, yo may find a Red-Light lesson where you least expected it.
A night of "fun" ended with the death of the man I loved and began a new chapter for me; filled with hours locked in an 8'x10' cell, meals off of plastic trays, and 4-hour visits from the family I left beyond the razor wire surrounding me.
Aye...Look, just keep an eye out for the guidelines and warning signs that God gives, so you don't run into a detour that could have been avoided. And, I say detour cause my life ain't over cause of this stretch I have in prison. God ain't done with me yet and beyond that, He is all powerful and can cut that sentence down any time He wants.
Stay up on ya homework and don't miss no lessons before you get took out the game.
Stay Blessed!
aRiEL
