When I arrived at work Tuesday morning, I had no idea I would be working so late. I work two full time jobs, a ministry one and a secular one to help pay the bills. My secular job is in San Francisco's financial district. My commute to get there involves driving from my home to the West Oakland BART station (SF's version of a subway), parking in a very bad neighborhood and walking anywhere from 2 blocks to half a mile from my car to the station, riding a train for about 10 minutes and then walking a little over 1/2 mile from the BART station to work. During the daylight it is a reasonably safe commute.. I have been mugged once (my purse stolen) and attacked by a teenage gang once.. only two serious incidents in six years of commuting. After dark, the commute is noticeably less safe.

I was busy on an interesting technical problem and lost track of time. The next thing I knew, it was after 10:00 PM, and I was already into the unsafe commute times. So I threw up a prayer, asking God to grant me protection. There'd been some bad incidents on BART late at night recently.. and someone had been mugged the night before. In fact, the day before, my car had been vandalized... sigh.

Suddenly I was strongly impressed that this potentially dangerous commute home was a "setup from the enemy" and that he'd laid a hurtful snare for me. I was not sure what to do. I tried calling my husband to come and get me, but he was unreachable.. he was not at home or at his work. So I tried praying again, asking God to protect me, and I started out the door.

Suddenly I had an auditory vision. I am not sure whether I heard this in my "mind's ear" or if I heard it audibly. But I heard one of my intercessors, a female, praying for me. She told God that the enemy had laid a physically dangerous snare for me, hoping to hurt me severely. She asked Him to protect me and then asked God to alert me to that fact and to impress me to take a taxi instead of doing my normal commute on public transit.

I was startled.. I have never heard someone's prayers for me. It really got my attention!

A taxi! I would have never thought of that in a million years. There is a taxi station only 2 blocks from my office and I could take it to my parked car in the bad part of West Oakland. I knew it would be expensive, but hearing someone else's prayers had really gotten my attention. (That sort of thing doesn't happen every day!)

So I went to the taxi stand and took a taxi to my car. To my surprise, it was only $22.00 .. I expected it would be quite a bit more expensive than that. I arrived at my car safely and uneventfully and drove it home.

I believe I heard a real prayer of a real intercessor in this "auditory vision." I am hoping that the Lord will let me find out who it was that was praying for me to be prompted to take a taxi home at about 10:00 PM PST on Tuesday night.

That was quite an experience for me.. I am not sure I am able to describe it well, but God literally opened my ears to hear another's prayer for me, and that prayer contained direction to get me home safely in a potentially dangerous situation. God is amazing, isn't He!

Side Note:

The next day (May 24) I read an article in the paper that San Francisco taxi fares were being raised substantially in a few days to make them the highest rates in the nation. They were originally hoping to have the higher fares in effect by the beginning of May, but the rate hike had been delayed until May 28.. so the Lord had held off the fare increase until after this "adventure." God is good!