Friday, March 5, 2010

On theft, being poor, and hobby lobby


I had a new experience today, when my new Sequoia was broken into while I was inside Hobby Lobby with the kids. This was revolutionary in a few ways. 1) I realized that I was driving a car that someone thought was valuable enough to have valuables. This in itself is quite strange for me, for anyone who has seen my previous vehicle would understand. I never even locked the doors to my van before.. the appearance was obviously enough of a theft deterrent :) Even my house before this one.. the one we rented from our dear landlord Mohammed... that house was the worst one on the street. Not to mention, it was probably the worst neighborhood for at least 15 miles. I would lock the doors when we were home, but was not afraid to leave them unlocked when we were gone. If someone was that desperate, that they would break into MY house in Tallowood, then they had problems beyond a lack of material goods. But such has been my creed for so long.. "No one would ever want to break into my house/car when there are so many other better ones all around.." I really got comfortable in this thinking. It made me lazy. And trusting! There are many benefits of being the worst house in a good neighborhood, and many disadvantages of being the best in a bad one. So today, when I left my purse in the passenger seat, in plain view of passersby, I was violently shaken from my former motto and forced to realize the truth: We aren't that poor anymore! We have stealable things! So despite the annoyance of having a vehicle vandalized, it was kind of complimenting :)
Moving on the #2 I realized what a sociological/moral lesson this was for my kids. Of course, they know stealing is wrong (Linden was even loudly quoting the commandment for others to hear.. just in case they have never heard that one) but I think that this is something kids never think about until it happens. And what I noticed most about the situation was how they looked at me and just waited to see how I would handle it... how I would react. And of course that constructive mother in me outweighed all other parts that may want to get mad.. and honestly, I really don't care about the car that much.. I do love it, but it's just a car. Just more so the inconvenience.. So when Judah started about how a bad guy did this, and that he wanted to 'beat up the bad guy' and so on, I decided to be as happy as I possibly could (for someone loaded down with bags, waiting in the lobby of a store with 4 kids for 20 minutes, for a police officer :) I told Judah that maybe this guy wasn't bad, but just desperate. Maybe he's had a really bad life. And shouldn't we be glad for all that we have? Now I'm not this optimistic and caring, but these are influenceable minds.. and I could see a memory forming in their little brains. So they kept trying to freak out about it, and I kept telling them to chill out, that everything was fine.. We swept the glass out of the seat, cleaned out the window and went home and played with blocks. But not before we said a prayer for the guy that did this to our car; that he may have his heart softened.. and change his life and repent and choose the right. (and that our car wouldn't cost a ton to fix:) All in all, it was a good lesson on forgiveness and gratitude. I mean, at least we have stealable things, right? Now that IS something to be thankful for :)

3 comments:

  1. your such a good mommy! I know i would have lost it and not have set a good example formy kids. Im so sorry that this happened to you and i hope it wont happen again

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  2. Wow, what an awesome perspective on things. I still have a problem with that mentality of 'we have nothing worth stealing'. It drives my husband crazy. I think it was living too long in student housing. Although oddly enough we once had our car broken into there for a roll of quarters. Hey, when you have to do laundry at the laundry mat then a roll of quarters is as good as gold!

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  3. ok, well i dont feel so optimistic about this anymore.. its really weird; i feel disenchanted with humanity now. At the time it was just shocking, but now that I have had time to think about it, it really makes me feel different about things! criminals!

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