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And we don’t understand a lot of things. But we learn that people are very disappointing, and that they break our hearts, and that very sweet people will be bullied, and that we will be called to survive unsurvivable losses, and that we will realize with enormous pain how much of our lives we’ve already wasted with obsessive work or pleasing people or dieting. We will see and read about deprivation and barbarity beyond our ability to understand, much less process. Side by side with all that, we will witness transformation, people finding out who they were born to be, before their parents pretzelized them into high achievers and addicts and charming, wired robots. 

Lamott, Anne (2012-11-13). Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (p. 24). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

We proceeded on the road to file civil charges to add to the felony charges and the thief returned the money to get us to drop the filing of the civil charges. We agreed to this because after all the felony charges are what’s important. Some felt we should have gone to the legal system to ask them to drop the charges but a wise friend asked me an extremely important and very poignant question:

“So you’re thinking of dropping the charges so that what? He can go to his next job and steal from them? What will be your accountability to the next employer because you will be accountable, just as everyone who doesn’t hold him accountable to, at minimum, an apology will be held accountable when he does it again.”

To say this was powerful was NO JOKE. Do I want to be accountable for his next robbery? Without godly sorrow we continue on the path to destruction. Evil was allowed to live in the camp because we have a distorted view of what it means to be a Christian. Did I want to contribute or did I want to get off the ride? Yes I want off the ride, because it was nauseatingly painful to watch the ripping apart of friendships.

I went into a time of reclusivity and prayer and just as my faith demanded I cried for help.  Just as God promised, he was quick to issue the balm to soothe the wounds, the strategy to combat evil, and the lesson so that it doesn’t happen again. Life Happens.