A Lesson in Forgiveness...

This past Saturday, rather than subject myself to the train wreck that UT Football has become, I decided to rake the leaves. (When I checked in on the score at halftime and realize UT was losing 13-0 to WYOMING, I was reassured that I had made the correct choice.) I'm also thankful I wasn't at the game, because I would have missed one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

As I was working on the yard, my 2 year old son was playing in a big pile of leaves. All of a sudden I heard this car screaming down our street at like 60 m.p.h. This isn't common because we live on a dead-end street, and the car was traveling the wrong way. My first instinct was to grab my son, and start yelling at the A-hole and tell them to slow down. But before I could do that, I hear my neighbor (a 60ish female) running down the street crying frantically. She's screaming that the person in the car had just robbed her! Seems my neighbor had been having a yard sale, and that the person in the car (a 27 year old female, I'm told) was there and asked if she could buy a pair of earrings or something. As my neighbor was making change for her, the lady said she "needed" her fanny pack of money, pushed my neighbor over a table and ran off with her cash.

I'm now standing in the middle of the street, holding my son, when I turn around to realize the robber has turned the car around and is heading back our way. Very quickly. As I stood in the middle of the road, I thought to myself: "Exactly what is your plan here?"

I guess if I was Matt Bourne or a member of the A Team, I would have hopped on to the front of the hood and hoped for the best. All while Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" played in the background.

But since I'm not (and I don't care for Bon Jovi) I opted to get out of the way, and then run after the car to get the license plate number. The cops were called, reports filed, and thankfully, my neighbor, while bruised, shaken up and out a couple hundred dollars, is ok.

And she taught me a great lesson. She called to give our family an update on things later that evening. At one point as she was talking, she said "I just pray that girl gets the help she needs..." I realized that at that moment, that she had put a very real, human face on Jesus' insistence that we "love our enemies." So often, Christians are portrayed as "soft" or "weak" because they are taught to "turn the other cheek." I think just the opposite is true. It takes great strength to hope, even pray, for someone who has wronged you so terribly.

Now my neighbor hopes the one who assaulted her is caught, and if she is, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. As Christians, we understand that there are consequences to our actions. But at some deeper level, my neighbor went beyond the all too common "eye for an eye" mentality, and hoped that this person who assaulted her and stole from her, got the help she obviously needed.

I must admit that I hadn't been so charitable in my assesment of this person. I had deduced that she must be a Meth-head and had abandoned her 7 children...all out of wedlock. How I deduced this I'm not certain. What I am certain about is that I hadn't had much sympathy for her. I hadn't prayed for her forgiveness, or really thought about what must lead a person to rob a 60 year old at a yard sale of all places. But I should have. Thankfully, my neighbor reminded me about how this could work.