Sleeping Dogs | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Sleeping Dogs | Previous Challenge Entry
By LeslieJean Anderson
08/15/18
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“Let sleeping dogs lie,” my mother always said. As the wife of a diplomat, this was her favorite saying. It was a philosophy that probably was necessary for her role as a hostess of many international events. But at home, it left me confused and uncertain.

“I feel like a mushroom,” I would mutter. “Always in the dark and fed scraps all the time.” When occasionally I tried to push through their carefully controlled nothing-conversation in my presence, I got into trouble. Many years later I discovered the reason for the tight grip on information in my family. My father was working for the CIA.

But God is good and still intervened with knowledge I needed growing up.

One time, when I was seventeen, a very pushy foreign national insisted on taking my mother and me out to dinner while my Dad was away. I had never met this man. I assumed he was somehow connected to our circle of diplomatic people, and I am sure my mother thought the same thing.

But looking back, maybe he wasn’t. When my mother left the room to get her purse, he approached me and opened a jewelry box, revealing a beautiful sparkling brooch. His behavior completely confused me, but I nevertheless expressed a polite appreciation for its beauty.

Then he stuck his hand down my blouse and tried to pin it on me.

Surprised and horrified, I stepped back and pushed his hand away. He was off balance and almost fell over the coffee table at my sudden move. My mother came back at that moment and saw it happen. Since the brooch was partly affixed to my blouse, I removed it myself and handed it to my mother who acted like everything was just fine.

I don’t remember how he explained himself, but I soon found myself sitting in the back seat of this strange man’s car. I did not want to go to dinner, but I didn’t want my mother to have to go alone. We didn’t seem to have the ability to throw him out.

As we drove to the restaurant, the man began to direct his conversation towards me in a very flirtatious manner. I remained sullen in my responses. Even in the dark, I could see my mother’s jaw get tight with concern.

“Don’t you know who I am?” he asked at one point.

Still annoyed, I snapped back, “No, I don’t, but you’re probably married with three kids at home.”

My mother shot me a stern warning glance and an icy silence descended on the car. After that, there was very little conversation. After dinner, my mother and I were dropped off safely, if rather unceremoniously at our apartment.

Mom didn’t want to tell my father about the incident, but I wouldn’t let that sleeping dog lie. Later, my father admitted that the strange man probably had nefarious intentions for me and possibly my mother as well. This was not unheard of in that country, where some people thought that Western women were wicked and loose because they had too much freedom. The guy would never have believed that at seventeen I was still a virgin and intended to stay that way.

Then Dad asked me what made me claim the guy was married with three kids and I admitted that it was just intuition – a lucky guess. It turns out that I was correct, and my comment had probably stopped the man’s planned advances. Only a background check could have revealed that information. Or God.

This incident put me on my guard as I traveled back to the United States alone to go to college. Sadly, this was just the first of several similar incidences, which led me into a life of caution and voluntary solitude – probably not a good outcome.

But there was also a good outcome: I developed a love for God’s Word. I found it was the very best source of information because His Word does not shy away from sensitive topics and it never changes. Often the very presence of my Bible seemed like Divine protection as I navigated an often-threatening world, mostly on my own.

And it was among God’s people that I finally found folks I could trust, including a godly husband who exceeded all my expectations.

But most of all, it drove me to always seek out the Holy Spirit, Who does not hesitate to awaken sleeping dogs to convey important information or to answer my prayers.

749 words This is a compilation of several true events.

Scripture: Luke 12:12 – “…for the Holy Spirit will teach
you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

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