A few minutes earlier, conscious but covered in blood, Nancy had crawled through her house, praying and pleading with Jesus and leaving a thick, red, bloody trail in her wake as she made her way into the bathroom, pushed herself up against the sink, steadied herself, and looked in the mirror.

She did not understand what she saw there. For a moment, she did not recognize her own face or remember how she had gotten into the bathroom.

Then she did remember. She remembered hearing God’s voice: “Get up!” He had told her.

She remembered getting up.

Nancy remembered punching the OnStar button in her car, again and again, before she realized that her keys were gone and that without her car keys OnStar wouldn’t work. She remembered punching the security code in on her burglar alarm to shut it off—something that had seemed so sensible when she’d done it but seemed ridiculous now, when she was desperate for help to come.

She should have let the alarm go off. Now she’d have to get to her kitchen and call 911 on the landline.  

Steadying herself against the walls of her house, smearing them with more blood as she made her way, she finally reached the kitchen. And in the time that it took the 911 dispatcher to answer—time that was no time at all—Nancy recalled even more. She remembered the man with the gun. The determined look in his eyes. The few, simple things he had said. And the blazing pain that had preceded the darkness. Nancy remembered lying on the concrete floor of her garage. She recalled everything that had led up to the moment in which her Savior had told her to wake up. To get up. To live.

Now it was Nancy’s turn to talk, to tell the 911 dispatcher what had happened, to ask for an ambulance and hold on until help arrived. As she dialed, she prayed for the strength it would take her to do it.

“Carrollton 911, what’s the emergency?”

“I’ve been shot!” was all she could say in response.

Nancy’s tongue felt fat and swollen. There was so much blood in her mouth, she could barely get the words out.

“Please,” she said. “Oh God, oh God.”

“What’s the address, ma’am?”

Upset as Nancy was, it gave her strength to hear the dispatcher’s calm voice.

“Breathe,” she told herself. “Breathe and try again.”

Slurring badly, she managed to give her address: “Forty-Five Bluebonnet Way.”

“Tell me exactly what happened,” the dispatcher said. But she could barely make out Nancy’s answer: something about her garage. Being attacked in her garage?

Nancy was slurring so badly now the dispatcher couldn’t be sure. Then, much more clearly, she said: “Please help me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the dispatcher told her—help was already speeding toward Nancy. The trick now was to keep her conscious and talking until help arrived.

“Just stay on the line, ma’am, and I’m going to get some questions going. How many people was it?”

Nancy told her, and as she did so, she felt relieved—concentrating on the dispatcher’s questions was so much easier than thinking about the blood and the pain.

“Just one that I’m aware of,” she said.

“Did you see him?”

“Yes.”

“Was he white? Black? Hispanic?”

“He was white. White with a black hat.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know.”

The dispatcher couldn’t make out Nancy’s next set of answers. She sounded fainter now. Groaning for help. Moaning in pain. Fighting for her life, but growing weaker with each passing breath.

“Lord,” she said once again. “I’ve been shot!”

“I know, ma’am. I can’t imagine how bad it hurts. I just want you to stay on the phone.”

The dispatcher glanced at the clock: Less than ninety seconds had passed since the call had come in. But help was still three or four minutes away from the house on Bluebonnet Way.

At the two-minute mark, the dispatcher asked Nancy her name for the first time.  

At the two-fifteen mark, she asked Nancy where she’d been shot.

At the three-minute mark, the dispatcher told Nancy that the police would be pulling up any minute.

Four minutes total had passed without the sound of sirens speeding toward Nancy, who was still moaning and praying to Jesus.

“If it’s taking your energy to talk, you don’t worry about it, okay?” the dispatcher told her. “I’m just going to sit here and make sure that they get to you.”

“Please don’t leave me; please don’t go.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. I’m going to stay on the phone with you until they get there.”

Of course the dispatcher would stay on the phone. If there was one thing the dispatcher had learned during her career with emergency services, it was that no one ever wanted to die alone—and from the sound of Nancy’s breathing, the dispatcher was afraid that Nancy wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.

Finally, at the five-minute mark, help arrived.

“It’s the police!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the dispatcher said, and then she heard other voices, and Nancy’s voice, saying, “Help me, help me,” over and over again.

To Nancy, the dispatcher’s voice seemed like the voice of an angel—an angel the Lord had sent to see her through.

She was still alive, still conscious, still on her feet. She even opened the front door for the two police officers and leaned against the doorjamb, looking like she’d stepped out of some horror movie as they sprinted up her driveway. But as the police officers ran up to Nancy, they saw something strange: The woman was smiling.

Looking at them, she saw two more angels. She’d been so scared—by the man, by the sight of her own, bloodied face in the mirror. She’d been praying so hard. All of her life, she had had so much faith. And now the Lord was rewarding her faith with a miracle. Nancy would live through this ordeal; she just knew it.  

The sight of her standing there, bloodied, barely breathing, calling for help, praying to Jesus, and smiling—that was a sight neither of the officers would ever forget.