Thankful Thursday

Today's Thankful Thursday is a post I never expected to write.

All over the news today was the story of the little seven-year-old boy in California who saved his family from armed intruders Tuesday morning. He grabbed his 6-year-old sister, hid with her in the bathroom, and called 911 while three men held his parents at gunpoint.

A seven-year-old boy. Sound familiar?

I have really struggled with this story today. It has made me feel sick inside and I've had to intentionally force my thoughts to move elsewhere when it comes to mind.

You see, I have my own 7-year-old boy.

And....Tuesday morning while intruders broke into that home in California - possibly even close to the same time - intruders were also breaking into MY home.

We're not sure exactly when it happened, actually. My Mister stopped by the house "mid-morning" on Tuesday to pick up something he had forgotten that morning. Sometime between his stop at home and the time the kids and I got home from school, someone had broken into our house. Kicked the front door in.

When we drove up to the front of the house I could see that the front door was standing wide open. While we sat in the car, in the street, I called the Mister to ask if he had come home for lunch and had maybe forgotten to shut the door. He often has to make several trips to his pickup carrying things out in the mornings....I thought it could have been possible that on his last trip out he had intended to go back but then just forgot. I really, truly thought that's what had happened. But he said no, he was certain he had locked the door.

Oh, and by the way, he was out of town when I called him. About an hour away.

I pulled into the driveway, left the car running, handed my cell phone to Kloe, confirmed "You know how to call 911, right?" and walked up to the glass door to see if I could see anything amiss inside. As soon as I got close enough to the door to see past the glare from the sun, I could see pieces of the shattered door frame laying in the entry way.

I ran back to the car and drove away as fast as I could. I called the Mister back because I was too.....hysterical??.....no.....but definitely not capable of talking coherently to a 911 operator. So I called Mister and through tears told him what I had seen and asked him to please make the 911 call. After calling two friends who weren't at home, and not knowing where else to go, I headed for my office. While we were on the way there, the police dispatcher called me and said officers were in route to my house and could I meet them there?

Really, how surreal is that? It's like a a line you would hear on some TV show. "Officers en route to the scene." Except the scene this time was my house.

When we arrived back at the house, there were two police cars parked in front. The officers were already inside and had already checked the house.

Are you ready for this?

There was nothing missing.

Nothing.

You've already heard how we have a 13-year-old car. Suffice it to say that many of the things inside our home follow suit. A hand-me-down television. A VCR...yep, you read that right....VCR. We do have a CD/DVD player, but it too is many years old. Apparently we didn't have anything worth stealing.

Here's the kicker, though. There was cash laying on the kitchen table - not a lot, but still, cash just the same - and my laptop (less than a year old) was on an end table in the living room.

And nothing was taken.

So y'all have to know my personality. The fact that nothing was taken in some ways made it even worse for me. Why would these people break into our home, invade our privacy, violate our sense of security....and NOT for the purpose of robbery? Why? It has left me very unsettled.

I'm trying to choose to see it through the eyes of my sweet friend Ashley, who said, "Maybe when they got in the door they saw a giant warrior angel standing in your living room and took off out of there!" Oh how I pray that is the case!

I have to tell you this whole episode has caused such a flood of different emotions that I didn't expect. Fear. Anger. Uncertainty. Loss of security. Anger. Violation. Confusion. Guilt (because I'm feeling all these things when nothing really bad happened). Anger. I will find myself going about my day as usual....and then I remember. And I go through the whole gamut of emotions all over again.

The kids are doing ok. Really well, actually. They don't want to go anywhere in the house alone, of course. And they've slept with us the last two nights. But overall I think they're doing good.

And so today we are thankful.

More than absolutely anything else, I am thankful no one was home. Had it happened on a Friday, there is a good possibility I would have been there. Or if it had been later in the afternoon..... I really, really can't let myself think about it.

I am so very thankful nothing was taken. Really my only concern the whole time we were driving around waiting for the police to call was that my laptop was gone with all the pictures of my kids on it. That thought alone made me absolutely sick.

I am thankful for our precious neighbor across the street who came over to help the Mister reinforce the door frame yesterday while we waited for a replacement door.

I am thankful for my sweet husband who took the day off work today just to be here in the house so it wouldn't be empty.

I am thankful for the grace of God that is protecting my children from fear and anxiety.

I am thankful for the Word of God, and for this verse that has been popping up everywhere around me for the past couple of weeks:

"Do not be anxious for anything. But in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:6-7.

I am thankful for God's protection, mercy, peace, grace, and compassion.

And I am thankful that angels are real. God's Word says He will give His angels charge concerning me (and my family), to guard us in all our ways (Ps. 91:11). It says that the angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear His name, and rescues them (Ps. 34:7). We have always prayed that the angels of God will surround us and protect us at all times, AND that they will become visible to the human eye if necessary for our protection.

I'm hoping they became visible to two very astounded eyes on Tuesday.