Luck or Providence?

So I was out of town looking for a perp/witness to one of the cases I am working. I left Sunday night, drove for several hours, got to the city and checked into a hotel with my partner. We went to sleep, or he went to sleep and I was awake all night. Not thinking about the case, but experiencing a man snoring like nothing I have every heard before. To say he was loud is an understatement! I am sure he could be heard in all of the rooms around us. I tried everything to block out the noise...pillow over my head, thumbs in my ears, fingers in my ears, hands pressed tightly over my ears with the pillow over my head. I have never been a earplug guy, but boy did I want some that night!

After a sleepless night, my partner and I drove around the city looking for this knucklehead. Our first stop was at the subject's university. I had called last week and set up the meeting with campus police to assist us. A leiutenent said he would be there and help us out. Of course when I showed up, the LT was no where to be found. My partner and I were put in a conference room and left alone for about 65 minutes...no one checked on us...no one asked if we wanted coffee or water...nothing. After our wait, one of the campus police detectives came in and announced the guy I was looking for was not there.

Feeling a little dejected, we called the city police and spoke with a detective. He told us to come to headquarters and he would help us anyway he could. Needless to say, that expereince was completely different. He looked through their system to make sure we had correct addresses, checked with some of their other units to see if there was any information available we didn't have, took us to several places until we found the correct residence where my subject lived. We got there and of course my subject was no where to be found. The only person home was the roommate.

Here's the part where God comes in.

The roommate of my subject has been a little frustrated with him. I guess my guy has not been paying his portion of bills. The roommate agreed to helps us find my subject. The roommate said he thought the subject would be in the city today because he had court for a traffic ticket. The city detective called all the various courts and found out my subject was not on any court calendar. The roommate said he was supposed to come by the apartment, so we waited. About 2 hours later the roommate called me and told me he had been asking around and the people who hung out with my subject all said he was not in the city. My partner and I decided to leave and head home.

After about 1 hour on the road, the roommate called me again. He told me the subject had been arrested this same day and was still in custody. I asked him where the subject was arrested and he told me it was in my jurisdiction. Imagine my shock!! It took the two of us driving to another city to find the subject I was looking for....and he was in my back yard! I called the jail and found out he was about to be released because of the nature of the charges. I asked the shift supervisor if they would hold the release until we got back so I could interview the subject. They said yes and we sped home (literally).

The interview was not as helpful as I was hoping, but I have a few more leads to follow.

But I got to thinking about how God's ways are not our ways. I had been looking for this guy for weeks and had been unable to track him down. If I had not planned this trip and talked to the roommate, I would never have found out the subject was in jail back home. The subject would have been released and I would never have known about it. Crazy to think that a few hours earlier I had been thinking the trip was a waste of time. Yet at the end of the day, God orchestrated things so that I got what I needed.

Some people don't believe God exists and therefore they think stories like these are "lucky". I do believe in God and that He is always at work in our lives...even in the little things. So when something like this happens, it is a reminder to me that nothing happens by accident.

Giving this a try

Blogging....

Seems to me to be a form of online journaling, giving people access to your thoughts. I have been reading my brother's blog here and am feeling like diving into the this thing. The problem is, I am 33 years old and the longest I have ever been able to write down my thoughts with any sort of consistency is around 5 days. That being said, I will try to make this different.

I have read the quippy and articulate musings of my younger brothers and am feeling like "big brother" better represent. Growing up in a house with 4 boys, there has always been competition between us. If you can think of a contest, we have all tried to "win" at some point. Some families have a hand in creating an unhealthy competition between siblings. Some people go their whole lives trying to be better than a brother or sister. My dad taught the four of us that character, integrity and hard work is what will set you apart in life. (He taught us so much more than that....but those were always the under current to everything) The four of us have attacked life having learned those lessons and approach most things with intensity to do whatever "it" is at the moment the best we possibly can.

So here we are....all married, all fathers, all going hard after life. If you happen to know anything about us, you know how different the four of us go after our desires. If I was going to be honest "at levels most of us don't talk about at parties", then I would say my brothers have helped me become who I am. The competition I spoke of has driven me to do better. Am I obsessed with doing things better than all of them? No. All I am trying to do is be like each of them. They each have qualities I want in my life. I think about what a blessing it is to have brothers that I truly admire and appreciate for exactly who they are.

I don't know how common or rare it is to have four brothers who love each other, respect each other and downright enjoy being together...but the Rowell boys (now men in the loosest sense of the word) expereince this.

I found a quote from Bonaro Overstreet I will end my first attempt at blogging:

"We are not only our brother's keeper; in countless large and small ways, we are our brother's maker."