Judgment call by John Fischer |
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I'm not so sure I would have let me go.
 I walked around the corner of my garage this morning at 4:42 a.m. to find two very powerful police flashlights trained on me. They had gotten a 911 call from Chandler's cell phone, and even though I tried to tell the emergency operator it was a false alarm, I knew they would come anyway. They had to come, and probably nothing I could do or say would have stopped them from coming. What if I had a victim trapped in the house who had managed to dial 911 before I commandeered the phone and told the operator it was a false alarm? Would I trust me?
It all started at 4:30 a.m. when my cell phone alarm went off but it wouldn't let me get past the lock mode. Every time I tried my password it failed; plus, there was a weird picture on the screen I had never seen before. Had I dropped my phone one too many times and now it was frozen? I turned it off and back on - a move that usually fixes a frozen state, but it came back with the same picture and would not take my password. That's when I noticed a button in the lower right corner for emergency calls. Thinking it was most certainly frozen and not able to deliver that call, I punched it out of curiosity and the call went through. "O (bleep), now what do I do?"
I tried to stop the call but it was too late. I could hear the voice of the operator asking if I was all right. Was there an emergency? Why did I dial 911? And then: "If you are in trouble, just tap the phone." That's when I knew I had to answer, but when I did, and I tried to explain why, I sounded pretty lame to myself. Then she read my phone number back to me and it was not my number. All I could say was "My phone's all screwed up." And then she asked for my address. Of course I gave it to her but I could see where this was going. "There's no need to send anyone out here. Everything's all right; it was just a false alarm." Yeah, sure!
By now Marti was awake, and as I tried to tell her what was going on, I realized I had the wrong phone. This wasn't my phone; it was Chandler's phone. No wonder the password didn't work but the call did. Marti tried to get me to call back on my phone, but I knew it was useless. What could I say that would remove all doubt? Wouldn't they have to check to be sure? And when I started out front and saw the flashlight beams, I knew I was right.
They asked me what was going on. They asked me about the cell phone. They asked me who was in the house. They asked me about the cars out front. They explained how in domestic cases it was common for the perpetrator to come out and try to stop them from going in, and because of that, they were going to have to go through the house just to make sure. I understood all of that, but couldn't think of anything I could say that would make them trust me. I imagined everyone awakened. I imagined the dogs going nuts. I imagined the neighbors going nuts over the dogs going nuts. I imagined the neighbors seeing me out front being detained by the cops. None of this was good.
That's when everything switched. It must have been something I said, or something about my body language that gave away my stupidity, but one of them decided to make a "judgment call" and call off the search. And then, as quick as God's grace, they were gone.
Relieved, I went back in the house, but as they drove away, I wondered if I would have trusted me.
Grace and mercy are pretty downright amazing. Imagine you standing before a perfect, holy and righteous God. Knowing who you are and what you have done, if you were God, would you let you go?
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John Fischer
Fischtank.com |
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