I have been asked to repeat the story about the gunman that tried to rob my wife at Walmart over at Admiral and Memorial. For the record, here’s what happened.
Several years ago, we had a burden to pray for our community, because there was a lot of gang activity and obvious drug trade. We decided to fast three days, just water, and seek the Lord. The way we fast is that after we have completed our fast, we take communion, proclaiming Is 58:6-12, and reminding the Lord of our commitment to His blood covenant.
Well, we were scheduled to eat on a Saturday morning and had been up late praying in the Holy Spirit, and singing praises. The Lord showed us two demonic strongholds operating in our community, a spirit of violence, and a drug devil. We commanded them to leave and knew we had obtained the victory in prayer.
I did what I used to always do before I’d been recruited for men’s Saturday morning, prayer, that is going to sleep, planning on sleeping in. Mornings are a necessary evil in life, I am usually most productive between the hours of 7PM and 1AM.
Karen did what she usually does, that is get up at some inhuman hour, like 4 or five AM, and clean house. Different body clocks for sure.
Well, I was sleeping, and she realized that we had no grape juice or Matza bread (unleavened bread), to take proper communion with, so off she goes to Walmart, at around 4:30am Saturday morning.
Here’s where it get’s interesting, she came out of Walmart, and she had parked the van second one in from the entrance. We had lost the little automatic unlock thingy that goes on the key ring, so she unlocked the passenger side door with the key, and threw the bag of groceries on the passenger seat. She said that she heard Holy Spirit speak to her, “Lock the door!”, so reflexively, she hit the lock button on the door, that electronically locked all the doors in the vehicle.
She walked around the back of the vehicle, to come in between the two vans to discover a man crouched down between the vehicles. He immediately stood up, to his full height of about 6’4″ (she said he was taller than me), and said “Give me your money or I will shoot you!”, She said, “God is my shield.” She asked quietly to herself, “Lord, what do I do?”
He was a black man wearing a blue hoody, and he had a pistol inside of the front pouch, pointed at her. Before she could think, she said, “Do you know about the blood of Jesus?” The man said, “Give me your money, or I will shoot you!” She said, ”I know about the blood of Jesus and I bind you, satan!” When he tried to raise his pistol to fire, he couldn’t lift his hand. He kept jerking it.
The Lord spoke to her very clearly. He said, “slap him.”
Then he started staring at his hand. She said, “God, give me strength.” She reached up and slapped him across the face, with all her might! God must have been in it, (she’s only 5’2”, and was not in shape back then) because the man fell to the ground on his knees at her feet.
She ran into Walmart, and asked, as she ran in the door, “Can somebody walk me to my car?” It must have been a pretty intense question because everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her in a frozen silence. A security guard walked up and asked what happened. “A man pulled a gun on me out there!” He immediately called the police. Two ladies brought a chair and tried to comfort. The Holy Spirit spoke in an authoritative voice, “The evil man bows before the good, and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.”
Is that a Scripture, she wondered? She called a friend who looked it up and said it is Proverbs 14:19.
Well, me, mighty protector and hero to my family, slept through the whole thing!
In fact, I was so tired, it took me a while to wake up and for her excited talking to even register on me.
Thought that would be the end of it, but God has a wonderful sense of humor. Guess she used my cell number on the police report, cause a couple of weeks later, I was bidding a job (been working as a carpenter) when the phone rang with a caller asking to speak to Mrs. Karen Walsh. I said, “That’s my wife, may I help you?”, Yes, the caller declared, “This is detective St. Clair, from the Tulsa police department, responding to the incident that occurred at the Walmart.” I said, “Oh yeah, that guy that tried to rob my wife.”, the detective went on to explain that the Walmart store camera’s had picked up the whole event, and they had managed to get a positive ID on the guy and had issued a warrant for his arrest. I said, “Praise the Lord!”, the detective went on to say, that three other detectives were with him, and had replayed the video three times, laughing hysterically at the little woman who slapped the gunman to the ground!. LOL! God is good, and Psalm 91, proclaimed and believed, will stop gunmen, for it is written:
Is 54:17 No weapon (gun, knife, fist) that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.
Post Script: Over the next month, God cleaned up our community. The two gangster crack houses on our street were closed, and the people moved out, and families moved in. The two wanna be tough guys, that would drive down my street at 70mph in their ‘boomchuckaboom’ car, had strained my last nerve. When I signaled them to slow down the last time, and they gave me the finger, I told the Lord, Either you deal with those boys immediately, or I’m going to. Well, that was a Wednesday, and we attended mid-week service and came home to sirens blaring and a couple of police cars several doors down. I looked over to see what was going on, and there were my ‘boomchuckaboom’ wanna be’s in handcuffs getting stuffed into the back of a police car. Throughout all of this drama, we never called the police on anyone, nor did I have to shoot or otherwise threaten anyone, nor was our house or property ever vandalized or burglarized, we have been safe in His everlasting arms.