What Happened to Marisol

So the craziest, most intense unbelievable thing happened at work to one of my coworkers last night, but it’s so wild it seems like something you’d read in a book or the news paper, so I have to write it like a story instead of just telling you what happened.

Everything you are about to read, is not fiction, but is in fact based on true events. Hold onto your hats, and keep at least one eye open. You are about to enter, the twilight zone. :)

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“Traffic is so bad.” Said Marisol into the telephone to her friend and coworker Jael. “There’s cops up ahead so something happened, and we’re not moving.”

“So how long till you get here?” Replied the other waitress. “Like half an hour?”

“More like an hour.”

“Ah bummer. Works boring with out you.”

“Ha ha, I know. See ya soon.”

“Alright, bye friend.”

Jael hung up the phone and laughed at the thought of her friend. What Marisol lacked in height, she made up in personality. No matter what she did, whether walking, working, or explaining rush hour traffic, she did it all with great energy and always with a hint of laughter in her tone. Marisol was one of the most entertaining people she’d ever met, and made working so much more enjoyable.

She got out of her car and headed to her restaurant, a fun and tasty Mexican food place with a family atmosphere, except on Friday nights when the bar was full and karaoke ran ramped, (always entertaining, yet incredibly agitating as well.)

An hour later Marisol entered the restaurant trembling, eyes wide with fear. She went straight to the phone and began dialing. When she finished, the other servers followed her into the back and began prying for answers.

“Someone just tried to shoot me.”
“WHAT?!!!” Came the replies from Marisol’s coworkers. They listened as she began to relay her story.

“After I hung up with you Jael I decided to get off the freeway since traffic was so bad.” Her voice was fast and edgy. No smile made it to her lips. She stood stiff, but continued. “Someone followed me in a green truck. And started shooting at me.”

No one could speak. Not even 30 seconds into the story and we all had a hard time believing it.
“He followed me all the way to work. I lost him in the parking lot and hid in my car. He drove around. When I saw a crowd of people walking by I got out and walked with them hoping I’d blend in. Afterwards, I called the cops. They said I was the second person who had reported the same incident and the same truck.”

She finished up her story and walked away leaving a speechless audience. Jael was about to walk away but heard the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit telling her to follow Marisol. Once inside the dressing room she asked Marisol if she was ok.

“Not really.” She replied. “I can barely stand, I’m shaking and I’m scared. I don’t know how I’m going to work tonight but Maria told me to take tables.”

She was about to walk out but Jael stopped her. “Wait, let me pray for you.” She said more as a command then an offer.

Marisol accepted and Jael began a short prayer for peace, offering up thanks for protection, hopefully making the girl feel God was on her side. After the Amen, the two hugged and went back to work.

The night went on normally, the events of the day fading away for Jael as she focused on her work, until an hour later she walked into the kitchen and saw a server laying on the floor. She knew instantly who it was, and somehow exactly what had happened. Marisol, overwhelmed by the stress, had fainted. She soon would find out how right she was.

She ran to grab towels to lay under her head, and then began stroking her head and praying in tongues under her breath. Laura, a manager, was gently bidding Marisol to wake up. Another server grabbed some tequila and started rubbing it under her nose and around her cheeks, but the girl was not responding.

A strength surrounded Jael and she knew what she had to do. She spoke silently under her breath, “Marisol, wake up in Jesus name.” The moment the words left her mouth, Marisol’s eyes shot open! She began looking around her claiming her head hurt.
Jael ran for Marisol’s phone and called her family, while Maria, another manager was on the phone with the police.

When Jael returned she told Marisol her sister and father had been contacted. She nodded her head and mentioned she still had tables waiting for their orders to be taken. Laura looked at Jael who replied, “I got it.” She laid her hand on her friends head on last time, whispering one last prayer and took off for the tables.

She forced a smile on her face, fighting back the tears that threatened to break though. She arrived and said as cheerful as she could to a table of four who had already had their drinks, “Hi, my names Jael, and I’ll be taking over for your server today.” As soon as her sentence finished, an ambulance pulled up and parked right in front of the window that stood between the table and the parking lot. The customers simultaneously turned their heads from Jael to the flashing vehicle outside, then back to their new server.

“What happened?” One woman asked.

Jael smiled as best she could. “Someone fainted.” They stared in silence. “Their OK.” Blinks. “Now, who’s ready to order?”

The night went on, feeling like forever. Jael was asked to stay late for Marisol. She worked as best she could, covering worry, praying constantly for her friend, trying her best not to cry.
The end of the evening was approaching and as she was solemnly putting dishes in the bus station she heard the most welcoming voice in the world call her name.

“Jael.”

She turned to find Marisol standing in the kitchen with a giant Marisol smile on her face.
She tossed her dishes without bothering to scrape the food off and ran to her friend screaming as dramatically as she could, “YOU’RE ALIVE!!!”

They both laughed and hugged as Marisol showed her the patches the doctors put on her chest and the doctors note proclaiming her diagnosis. “Fainting due to extreme levels of stress and fear.”

They joked about the prior events, easing each one’s worry and stress. They hugged one more time before Marisol left with her family.

Jael smiled feeling multitudes better and finished her night no longer forcing a smile and thanking God for his ultimate protection, and divine hand in every situation, and for the knowledge, that He is in control.

The End!

50 Things I Really Like

Here are some things I REALLY REALLY like that you may or may not know about me.

(And for the record, *ahem-joy-ahem* they are in no particular order. Just randomly written from the top of my head)

1.) Hats and Sunglasses
I love hat days! And whether summer or winter, sunny or cloudy, sun glasses are just great all the time. People say hats and sun glasses are to keep the sun off your face, but I disagree. I think hats and sunglasses are simply meant to boost your cuteness level!

2.) Movies
Anyone that really knows me KNOWS I LOVE MOVIES!!! I mean, I really, really love watching movies, going to the movies, and in elementary I even started making movies. I stopped after high school, but one of my favorite things to do is just sit and watch a movie. What you see here in this picture is a small portion of my movie collection.

3.) Writting songs on the guitar.
I got this guitar for my 16th birthday, I think. It's an Ovation, and though I don't do it as much anymore, back in the day, I would spend hours on this thing making up songs. I love the guitar so much, my number one non-spiritual requirement for my husband, that I do pray for, is that he would play the guitar.

4.) Hair Design

I can't cut or do highlights, but when it comes to hair design, for me it's like painting or sculpting. It's art. Someone once pointed out that my signature is the funky hair styles I sport, which I'll take as a compliment. I LOVE doing hair. (The pictures above are my work.) In high school and Jr. High, I did mine, and my friends hair for every dance, including prom. There's just something about having a million and one possibilities, and you can pick any one, create your own, or do one thing, and something completely different turns out.

5.) RT56
RT56 is the highlight of my week. I love those kids, I love teaching them, and I love building relationships with them. These kids are one of the most fufilling things of my life.

6.) Reading and Writting Fiction
I got 3 gift certificates to book stores for my birthday, I think people know this about me ;) In 5th grade, I started reading a chapterbook a day. That love has not diminished, just the time. In Jr. High, I started writting poetry and stories.

7.) Good Friends
I've always been a firm believer that 1 really good friend is better than 100 popular ones. These girls and I were best friends from 5th grade all the way till the end of high school. This pic was taken after prom at Dennys. (note, the 3 on the left side, inculuding myself, all had their hair done by me for prom.) We were so close, that we started calling each other's parents "mommy" and "daddy." Our moto was, "a true friend will raid your refridgerator without asking." Things have changed, and we've all gone in different directions, and each of us have made a new group of "good friends," but I have no regrets.


8.) Children
9.) Working for Pastor Julia
10.) People
11.) Ketchup
12.) Mudd masks
13.) Bubble Baths
14.) The beach
15.) Home Improvment (The show)
16.) The Disney Channel
17.) When it's really windy
18.) Running in the rain
19.) Chocolate milk
20.) Traveling
21.) Phil Wickham
22.) Nora Jones
23.) One on one conversations
24.) Rubys Diner
25.) Hot Turkey Artichoke sandwiches at Panera
26.) Wearing tiaras
27.) Prom dresses
28.) Off the sholder shirts
29.) Red hair
30.) The name Oliver
31.) The last name Hawthorne
32.) Buying CD's of people I've never heard of before
33.) When Joy says "your mom"
34.) Pride and Prejudice
35.) Brittne's laugh
36.) Donald's stories
37.) Sushi
38.) The # 3
39.) The color purple (the actual color, not the movie)
40.) Pet fish
41.) Lots and lots of grass
42.) Folding laundry
43.) Fan fiction
44.) Being spontanious
45.) Windows
46.) The story of Joseph in the Bible
47.) Getting a prophetic word
48.) Spanish
49.) Meeting new people
50.) Dreaming

If you actually read all this, congradulations. You win... the satisfaction of knowing what to get me for Christmas. ;) J/K.

Love ya.

My Flat Tire

My tire went flat last Sunday afternoon. I was worried, but when I filled it up, it stayed so I let it go. Then, the next afternoon it was flat again, which I didn’t realize until I had to go to work. So we filled it up with my grandpa’s air pressure thing-a-ma-bob-ber, went to work and after it was still fine, but it was too late to fix it any where. Now, don’t ask me why, it’s most likely my personality and my procrastinating nature, but this went on for a couple days. Filling the tire, going to work, driving for a while, filling it again, repeat. Well, Wednesday, today, I finally took my car to a little shop by my school. It was fun. The mechanic was sweet and when he saw my Spanish school books in the back seat, he asked me about my classes and then started conversing with me in español, (that means Spanish in Spanish.) So, he checked my tire to see what had caused the air leak, and you’d think it would have been some crazy sharp nail or something, but no, take a look…






The dullest, fattest screw I’ve ever seen in my whole life! It looks like it had a battle with my tire too. It’s become flattened and jagged and bent at the top, yet somehow it made it into my tire. Who was the victor might you ask? Well, not sure exactly, but it wasn’t the girl with the flat tire.

And Jael's "Favorite Picture of the Year Award"

goes to...


...this guy!






(It's actually a picture of Phil Wickham, but I think it's a sweet pic!

God's Mailbox Just Might be the Ocean

I found this sweet story about a few 100 letters addressed to God found in the ocean. You can check THIS LINK to read it and see the pictures, or just read below.



Letters to God Found Dumped in Water
They Were Sent to a New Jersey Minister Who's Now Dead
By WAYNE PARRY, AP

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (Nov. 3) - Some of the letters are comical (a man asking God to let him win the lottery, twice), others are heartbreaking (a distraught teen asking forgiveness for an abortion, an unwed mother pleading with God to make the baby's father marry her).

The letters - about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister - ended up dumped in the ocean, most of them unopened.

The minister died two years ago at 79. How the letters, some dating to 1973, wound up bobbing in the surf is a mystery.

"There are hundreds of lives here, a lot of struggle, washed up on the beach," said Bill Lacovara, a Ventnor insurance adjuster who was fishing last month with his son when he spotted a flowered plastic shopping bag and waded out to retrieve it. "This is just a hint of what really happens. How many letters like this all over the world aren't being opened or answered?"

Many of the letters were addressed to the Rev. Grady Cooper, though many more simply said "Altar." According to the text of several of them, they were intended to be placed on a church's altar and prayed over by the minister, the congregation or both.

Some were neatly written in script on white-lined paper, others in a feverish scrawl on tattered scraps of parchment or note cards. Many were crinkled from being in the water and then dried out after Lacovara fished them out of the sea.

A dog-eared business card inside one of the letters identified Cooper as associate pastor of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Jersey City. A woman who answered the phone at the church office confirmed Cooper once was a minister there, and had died nearly two years ago. The current pastor did not return several calls from The Associated Press over the past few days.

Other documents in the bag, including bank statements and canceled checks, also listed Cooper's name and an address for him in Jersey City. A death certificate issued in 2004 for a Grady Cooper lists the same address as those on the bank documents and some of the letters.

His wife, Frances, whose name also showed up on some of the letters at the same address, died in 2000, according to Hudson County records.

No one answered the door last week at the address where Cooper once lived, and a neighbor said he did not recall anyone by that name. Attempts to locate Cooper's relatives were unsuccessful.

Lacovara speculated that someone cleaning out Cooper's home found the letters and threw them on the beach in Atlantic City, about 100 miles from Jersey City.

"I guess rather than just throw them in the garbage, maybe they thought they'd set them out to sea to bless these people," he said. "So they made a trip to Atlantic City, maybe went to a casino, and put the letters in the water."

The letters, wrapped in several smaller brown paper bags inside the larger plastic bag, did not appear to have been in the water too long, Lacovara said, though about half were too badly damaged to be legible.

He opened a few with his son, Rocky, on the beach. The first few were humorous.

"I'm still praying to hit the lottery twice: first the $50,000," one man wrote. "Than after some changes have taken place let me hit the millionaire."

Another asked God to make a certain someone "leave me alone and stay off my back."
One woman complained that her husband always talks about sex, and another writer anonymously to God about someone cheating on his wife, complete with dates, times and locations.

But those, Lacovara soon found, were the exception.

Many more were written by anguished spouses, children or widows, pouring out their hearts to God, asking for help with relatives who were using drugs, gambling or cheating on them. One man wrote from prison, saying he was innocent and wanted to be back home with his family. A woman wrote that her boyfriend was now closing the door to her daughter's bedroom each night when it used to stay open, and wondered why.

A teenager poured out her heart on yellow-lined paper in the curlicue pencil handwriting of a schoolgirl, begging God to forgive her and asking for a second chance.

"Lord, I know that I have had an abortion and I killed one of your angels," she wrote. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the mistake I made."

One unwed mother wrote that her baby was due in four weeks, and asked God to make the father fall in love with her and marry her so the child would have a father.

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But now, from coast to coast, people are lining up to answer the prayers.

Lacovara originally put the collection up for sale on eBay, but he canceled the Internet auction for them on Friday after seeing how sincere the interest was among the faithful who want to make sure that someone finally hears each request.

"The religious folks are coming out of the woodwork," said Lacovara. "It's been non-stop: a pastor in Texas, one from Colorado, another from somewhere in the midwest. One guy said he wants to write a play about this."

So now he's fielding offers from churches across the nation who have expressed interest in obtaining the letters so their own congregations can pray over them. He plans to hand over all the letters for free to one of them.