The cruel, glaring lights of our ceiling fan jolted me awake this morning. My tired, squinty eyes saw Travis standing in the doorway. He was leaving for a 7:00 a.m. coffee date with a guy from church. I figured he was just looking for something. I briefly thought about throwing the Mentholadum bottle (sitting within arms reach on my bedstand) at him, but figured I didn't want to start the day out by broadsiding my husband! :) I just shut my eyes again.
"Jae!" Travis said in a urgent voice.
"Travis, what are you doing, Honey?"
"YOUR van was broken into last night. Your purse is gone and so is your cell phone."
"Crap!" I said (that's what I really said...sorry for the strong language). I sat up and tried to rouse myself to fully awake. Travis just kept talking to me. I'm not a morning person, although it's part of my job, so waking up upon hearing the van had been broken into really made me grumpy. Thankfully, my anger was at myself, not Travis!
Neither of us were surprised, unfortunately. We have crooks living at both ends of our block. Our other neighbors are fantastic, but the trouble-makers whom we suspect deal drugs and KNOW have gone on stealing rampages are a pain in everyone's rear.
We missed the first round of break-ins and robberies that happened last summer. A couple of the aformentioned morally misguided neighbors went and stole from every home or car in the neighborhood but ours. One household at a time the people on the block realized they had been burglarized and made separate police reports. Then they shared stories, as neighbors do, and realized just about everyone on the block had been burglarized in the middle of the same night. Long story short. The ex-convicts that had recently been released from prison got caught on some other charges after they burglarized the neighborhood. The police stumbled upon the property and found all of the things stolen from our neighbors. The story was on the front-page of the regional newspaper.
The crooks are brave, too, and apparently don't mind having run-ins with the law. They went on to steal an SUV from the elderly couple two houses down and then stole the truck of the widower that lives right behind us! I'm guessing they're not in the market for a mini van or ours would already be gone.
I closed out my credit and debit accounts and made sure no charges were made after the purse was stolen. The Deputy Sherrif came and took the police report. I had about $15 cash in the purse, plus my cell phone. My parents cancelled my cell phone (still a Kansas number). We then went to the bank, closed out our checking account and moved all of our money over to a new account we opened. By God's grace, I had just run out of checks, so only deposit slips were in the checkbook!
I am frustrated with myself for not being more careful, especially considering the warnings we got from neighbors. I haven't forgotten to bring in my purse and lock the van in a long time...but the night I did forget was the wrong night for me.
Despite the frustration and anger toward myself and the crook(s), I focused on the good part of the situation. Me, Travis and my kids are all okay, we still have a minivan to drive, nothing else was taken, nobody broke into our house and nobody used the credit/debit cards. My purse and the cell phone were important and of material value, but they are replaceable.
Ultimately, I hope the crooks get their paths straight and Jesus touches their hearts and changes their lives. I can't hold a grudge or have unforgiveness toward the crooks. Jesus loves those them, too. He's just waiting for them to choose to love Him back!
No comments:
Post a Comment