Thief in the Night

I’d just take it. If no one was around, If no one would notice, If no one would be hurt by it, miss it, or care, I’d take it.

Small child, me. Candy store. Yes, please. Having no money yet having desire, Such great, such strong desire, I’d seize the opportunity Every chance I’d get To possess what I wanted Though at the time, The urge so pressing, It was as though I needed it, Couldn’t go on without it, Had to have it. So, without any other way to get it, I’d just take it.

Surely this quest to satisfy my desire became more and more challenging Though the payoff, more and more satisfying If only for the time being, The time, be it fleeting.

Candy, cigarettes, makeup, clothes, office supplies, money, men…Strangers, friends, relatives, businesses, public places. I didn’t discriminate. I’d just take it.

Poverty. Lack of money, yes. Impoverished. Also to include a depraved heart.

My mother had to pick me and my bike up at the corner market once, having been caught feeding my candy addiction. Those Rolos were calling my name, asking to be liberated, and in my attempt to rescue them, I’d been captured by the clerk. Perhaps people do care what it is I do, I thought. But my mother quickly abolished that thought, having given no mention of my misdeeds, her mind captivated by more pressing matters: herself.

A flaming red lipstick landed in my pocket just before I was escorted up to the balcony by the drug store security guard who had caught me red-lipstick-handed. Upstairs, I caught a new view behind the mirrored walls which only taught me to be more aware, more careful. I’d spend twenty hours over the next six months doing yardwork at a daycare facility as penance while on probation. And by “doing yardwork”, I mean chain-smoking my mother’s Salem 100s as I hid somewhere in the back forty. Not exactly a remedy to my internal problem, but an external solution that seemed to please those in charge.

My father, before driving me five hundred miles back to my mother’s house after a summer visit, had the audacity (or was it the wherewithal?) to go through my belongings before putting my bulging suitcase into the car. I may have taken some things from everyone and everywhere we visited that summer. So, he, this religious man, did what any man who doesn’t quite know what to do does. He sits me smack down in a kitchen chair in the middle of the living room and shames me. He yells at me from this angle and from that, while walking around in circles, telling me in no uncertain terms what a horrible person I am and that I’ll never amount to anything, with a special emphasis on how this makes him look bad to others. And he, this man, this father of mine, this believer in little-g god, proceeds to crush what little spirit I may have had left inside of me before putting me in the car and sitting in silence for the next ten hours. Again, this wasn’t exactly a remedy to my internal problem, but an external solution that seemed to please those in charge.

Once, around 19 years old, I was visiting my sister and her husband at his parents’ house. His mother’s wedding ring came up missing, and they blamed me for taking it. It was this day that I felt so bad, as though I had taken it (because it wasn’t exactly outside of my repertoire to have taken it), but I didn’t. And they never believed me. That’s the thing. If you’ve become a certain type of person, people expect you to be that certain type of person and can’t believe that you’d ever be some other certain type of way.

But I’m here to say, with God, all things are possible.

Unbeknownst to me and in no way that I could trace, God has reprogrammed me. He snuck in, like a thief in the night (and that’s something I’d know about), and He dusted off this and He swept out that, rearranged the things here and opened the shutters there. He even polished the silver and placed, right in the midst, a beautiful flower arrangement and a bowl of fruit as He came in and passed on through. He even left a love note stating He’d be back soon.

It used to be that if I found it or somehow got it, it was mine. The law says possession is nine-tenths, right? That is what society teaches us. Right alongside the lesson that we are to always want more and therefore to have more and to never stop until we get more. Well, Jesus says, “Now wait a second… If you can do good, then do.” And that’s because He has taken possession of my once-impoverished heart.

Just yesterday, I found four beautiful necklaces and a walkie-talkie at the dog park next to the truck stop. My heart, pitter-patter it went! Thanks, God! I wanted to say, but before I could actually believe and utter those words out loud, God nudged me. A poke, really. I looked over at the truck stop and thought how they might have a Lost and Found. So… I walked over, dogs and all, and I surrendered the goods. Nobody caught me, I wasn’t shamed into it, no hidden agenda. It was just love guiding me into and towards more love. It became the right thing to do. Not “the law says” but “the heart knows”. That’s the power of God. My heart is in His possession.

And just this morning (used to be 4am was still night!), as I was leaving the restroom, with no one around, I found a bag of soda pop and candy hanging on the back of the stall door. I grabbed it, took it to the counter. relinquished it to the proper authorities and went on my merry way. What a great feeling! To be whole. Complete. Lacking nothing.

Even if I am out of diesel. Praise Him. Amen.