Thievery and God... and Stuff

My weekend was a little hectic, so I apologize for disappearing for a few days. As most of you probably already know, we took E to the Montshire Museum this weekend. While there, I put my purse down to take a photo, got distracted, and someone took it.

I was so sure that I had just lost it, and I feel like for the first time in my life, I believed that I was just a ditzy mom, more focused on chasing after my 2-year-old, who would retrace my steps and find my purse next to one of the exhibits. After all of us searched the museum from top to bottom, we were pretty sure that someone had taken it, but I still believed that someone had just found it, that it would be returned.

Just to be safe, I called the bank to close my debit card, credit card, and Pay Pal accounts. When I did, I found out that someone was trying to use my cards and had attempted to charge a total of $762.00 on my cards. I had closed my accounts just in time (within 5 minutes of the attempted charges), and he was only able to get about $70.00 off of my debit card that the bank will refund us after the police report is filed.

This was hardly a devastating loss for us, but it still makes me ask the question, "Where is God (or positive energy or good karma) when bad things happen?" I firmly believe that these negative things that happen to us are of the Earth, that they're just life. Negativity working through other people is bound to touch as at some point. It's bound to blast through our lives in the form of a stolen purse, a stolen moment, a stolen life itself.

After I reported what happened to the museum staff, I looked up to see other moms searching the museum for my bag. My sister-in-law said, "Look at all the people who are helping." Women came up to me and asked if they could help. Families spent their last few minutes at the museum helping me look. The staff took down my information and are even having a meeting today with executives to discuss the situation and the possibility of putting security cameras in the museum.

This is the first time something like this has happened at the museum in over 10 years.

My mother-in-law helped us by giving us some cash to cover the amount we lost until the bank can refund us. She even took me out to buy me a new purse. I had lost the one she had gotten me for Christmas. She even took me over to Staples to buy a new Moleskine sketchbook to replace the one stolen.

Every time I look at that bag, I'm happy.

I kept asking myself, "Why did this happen to me?" And I came to the conclusion that -- God knew we could handle this blip, he knew that I would look to Him and say, "Thank you for picking me... and not some family who only had $70.00 to buy groceries for the week and no other source of funds."

I like to imagine that God delayed this guy's spending spree by 5 minutes. Maybe a slow-driving grandma pulled out in front of him or his super-sized McDonalds dinner that he bought with my money came out of the fryer a few minutes late. Ha!

And when I ask myself, "If God could do all that, why couldn't he prevent my $70.00 from being stolen?" I have to believe that there was a reason for that, too. Maybe he needed medicine for his son or food. Maybe he really needed that 42" plasma TV from Best Buy too... Okay, probably not, but... I have to trust that in the big picture, we're all heading toward something that's good and that for that to happen, some bad must happen along the way.

And all I know is that, when I follow that feeling I get when I do something good to help others, when I choose a path of helping instead of hurting and when I teach my child the same, it feels right. By law of attraction, I draw similar people close to me, and I'm blessed to say that these things have rarely happened to me. And when they do, I can always find the good in it.

And when I have trouble seeing the good, the good people around me find it for me. And when I really have trouble seeing the good, when I lose sight of the path, God shows me.

So, suck it, thief!