The Fallen World

I've been robbed twice in my life -- that I knew about. Once was October 2008. My suitcase was stolen out of the rental car trunk. Yes, the trunk. I was in Utah and super excited to spend some time alone in the beautiful outdoors before picking up my daughter at the airport. We were meeting there to attend a friend's wedding and have a fun mother/daughter weekend.

Apparently, I didn't lock the car while I ran in a restroom to change clothes at a park and ride. The thieves had just time to pop the trunk, lift out the main suitcase and abscond with it before I came out. They left behind the electronics, coats, cameras. They got all my clothes, which was not really a great haul. More of a loss form me as I lost a couple of new dresses I'd just bought. But I'm not even a common size so I doubt much of what they got was usable for them. I assume they were disappointed, which was some consolation.

But I felt terribly violated and disconcerted that I couldn't get over it quickly. It's the sort of thing that you go to your closet to look for something and then think, "Oh, I don't have it. It got stolen."

And then there was tonight. At my retail job. I was given fake currency which I didn't recognize and gave change for it. I was furious. Again, I felt violated. It is a theft that hurts all of us -- those working, those shopping, those living honestly.

And then when I got home, I found out that a son of close relatives had suffered at stroke tonight. If not life threatening, certainly the outcome will be life debilitating. And so my own experience of the evening is overshadowed by something much more serious.

This is a fallen world. There is no good explanation why people are willing to take from others. There is no good explanation why a healthy man in his forties with two young children is stricken with a debilitating stroke. His parents have already suffered from the loss of one son several years ago.

And so tomorrow (well, by now I supposed it is today) I will go to worship and lift up my eyes to God and I will lift the thief up to His judgement and ask for the healing only He can give for my friend and I will ask for comfort for the parents who are faced with yet another tragedy.

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

--Isaiah 40:28 NIV

We may not understand, but He understands us.

May tomorrow be better than today.

--Laura