Last Monday I had the opportunity to testify in the trial of a man who made a complete ass of himself at the Burger King I used to work at. The kid, who we will refer to as Will from here on out, was in my restaurant back in February of this year. I was on boards (making sandwiches) that day, apparently I forgot the bacon on Will's sandwich, so he came back in to "let me have it". I made his sandwich a second time, and it wasn't good enough for him because there wasn't enough bacon on his sandwich, even though I put the proper specs on his sandwich. So I made his sandwich a third time and put the exact same amount of bacon on his sandwich. Now, to make this story very short, Will was told over twenty times to leave my store, to which he refused. Once he finally decided to leave, he felt the need to throw an elbow to the back of my employee. The police were called and he was taken to jail on battery and trespassing charges.
Fast-forward to this past Monday during the trial. Myself, a former employee of mine and a customer who witnessed the incident all showed up to testify against Will. Mine and my employee's testimony alone most likely would have been enough to put Will away. But the customer's testimony, whom I had never seen before in my life until that day, and had not seen since that day, put the nail in Will's coffin. When we arrived at the courthouse, the prosecutor took the three of us into an empty hallway and explained to us that Will was already on probation for a violent drug crime when all of this happened. Why was he NOT in jail still?!?! I digress. We were told by the prosecutor that he was going after the maximum sentence against Will. JUSTICE!!!
We waited in the courtroom for over two hours before we were finally called up to the bench. The three of us testified first. Questions were asked by both sides to all of the prosecution's witnesses. I got the idea immediately that the defense attorney was trying to play it up that Will was the victim in this case. I was right. Will began testifying as the first witness of the defense. He testified that me and my employee were threatening to him and were trying to get physical with him. I literally had to stifle a laugh. His entire testimony was a lie. The only part that wasn't was that it took place in my Burger King.
So after all of the testimonies were given, the judge rendered his verdict. Will was found guilty! Sentencing began immediately. The defense talked about how it just wasn't in the people's best interest to give Will a jail sentence over what equates to a $2.00 sandwich and Will being a jerk. DUH!!! The prosecution then argued that the law is the law and trespassing and battery were trespassing and battery. And that when you're on probation, you don't get probation. GREAT LINE!!! After ripping Will in half for being a douche bag and being back in his court for the second time in less than a year, the judge revoked his probation and sentenced him to 180 days per charge. That means that Will is going to be in jail for the next two years. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars! The sheriff's deputy put cuffs on Will immediately and took him out of the courtroom. See ya in about 730 days Will! Stupid.
Okay, enough about that. Let's get to what I really wanted to come here to talk about.
In the past four to five years, Amanda and I have had a marriage that a lot of people envy. We never fight, we're never hateful to each other, we show each other the utmost respect and we deeply love each other.
However, this last year I have noticed that sometimes we fight. Sometimes we can be hateful to each other. And I don't like it all, just like I know Amanda doesn't like it at all. I wasn't sure what in the world was going on, so I started praying. I prayed hard. I asked God what in the world was going on in my marriage? It felt like we were losing our footing. It seemed as though the past five years was just a moment of zen, and reality was coming back home to knock us both in the face and tear us down. So I prayed. I continued to pray to God to show me the answers. Please Lord, reveal to me what is happening and how we fix it. As a bit of side note, please understand that the past year has not been a bad year for our marriage. It just felt at times as though things were coming apart at the seams. I had been praying for quite a while, when the other night things seemed to come to a head. We had it out and we both ended up falling asleep angry. I woke up after being asleep for only an hour or so and my mind began racing. I nearly sent myself into a panic attack. I finally fell back asleep at around 7am. After a few more hours of sleep I woke up. Amanda, already awake, sitting beside me. We talked for a long time. Talked. Not argued. Talked.
We worked things out, and together we figured out that our marriage was under attack from the devil. The enemy was doing his best to try to rip our marriage up bit by bit. And he was succeeding. The wonderful thing about having God in our lives is that we have an Ace up our sleeves. He wants ALL marriages to succeed. I invoked the name of Jesus to make the devil flee from our lives once more and began praying for the Lord to restore what had been damaged. Since that day, our marriage has been fun once more. It has that zip that had been absent for a time. We are back. While our love never wavered, there were doubt from both of us. Now I believe we can both confidently say that there is no more doubt. Only love.
Below are a couple of videos that mean a lot to Amanda and I. Give them a listen if you'd like.
God Gave Me You by Dave Barnes. This is the original, beautiful version of this song.
This is the song that Amanda and I chose to be "our song". Keeper of the Stars by Tracy Byrd
