Busyness, break-ins and blessings

Don’t you hate weeks when you feel there is hardly time to breathe? This is one of those weeks for me. I am glad to be busy, but looking down the tunnel of this week, I can’t help but to say, ‘UGH!’ It all started Sunday, which I knew would be busy, because after church I was going to the mall to get a gift for my sister and I to give at a wedding we are going to on Saturday, help set up for a reception at church on Sunday night, attend a bonus rehearsal for choir, then church and the reception.....but what I hadn’t banked on was my car getting broken into during church! In making a somewhat long story short, we had already gotten into the choir loft and church had started, then someone told me I was needed in the back hallway.....after about 3 tries of getting me to understand what he was saying....since church had already started and I couldn’t imagine anything that couldn’t wait....I crawled over everyone on my row and got out...only to be told that my car had been broken into and the police needed to talk to me. So I was taken around to a policeman who put me in his car and drove me to where my car was parked. They made me look through it to see if anything had been taken, etc, they asked me a bunch of questions, then I was fingerprinted. If you can see me in your head, in my choir robe, standing in the parking lot with policemen all around, being fingerprinted. I am sure it was such a sight. My hands were all nervous and shaky. They had already caught the guy that did it, they just needed fingerprints to positively identify him. After all that, the same policeman who took me to my car rode me back up to the church and I got back just in time for the sermon. I eventually calmed down, but I was distracted for a while, no doubt! Anyway, this is the rest of my week: Monday: Dinner with friends Tuesday: Dinner with my mom, her husband, my sister and her family (my mom is here from Florida) Wednesday: Children’s choir planning meeting and choir practice Thursday: Birthday celebration for my mom (she will be 65.....hope she doesn’t know I do this and find out I printed her age all over the internet) Friday: CD recording for a CD the choir is making Saturday: Wedding I really do like being busy, but it makes me tired just looking at this week! I am already looking forward to my Sunday afternoon nap. I do want to say something else though about the guy that broke into my car. He did not take anything, there was absolutely no damage and there was nothing to entice him to pick my car over any other one in the parking lot. If anything, I would have thought that the ‘anti-theft system’ sticker on my window would have deterred him, but it evidently didn’t. I had left my windows cracked because it is so hot these days, but he evidently picked the lock then grabbed the top of the inside of the window to open the door. This is where the police got his fingerprints from as far as I know. A neighbor had seen him trying to get into my car and yelled at him to stop, the guy yelled some obscenity at him, then the neighbor called the police and I suppose gave them a description of what this guy was wearing and that is how the police were able to catch him so quickly. I wish I knew who the neighbor was so I could thank him. I find my thoughts this week going to my appreciation for the person that reported this and also to the poor guy that broke into my car. The police said he was evidently homeless and was probably looking for money. This area has changed so much since I grew up and it is very sad to think that there are homeless people here in this community. Everything always seems to happen to ‘someone else’ or somewhere else, but now that this has happened to me, even though it is a very minor incident, and again with no damage except the fact that I was shook up for about an hour, I have found myself, even during church, praying for this guy and that something would make him turn his life around or that he would get some break to help him get on his feet. I understand that what he did was a crime, but I am sure he felt there was/is nothing else to do about getting money, so he did the only thing he felt he could. I am not sure how I would feel if I were having to deal with all of this if he had broken a window or something and I was having to haul my car around to leave it to be repaired, but this is how I feel for now. After all, it is only a car..... I guess mostly this drives home to me the point that I am a very blessed individual even if I don’t realize it as fully as I should a lot of times. I have had an easy life and have never faced the issues I am sure the guy that broke into my car faces. I am the first to admit that money is tight sometimes but that is usually a monster of my own making. I have certainly never been without a roof over my head, clothes to wear or a little money for a meal. I think that I take those things for granted. I don’t mean to, but I think I just do. I am grateful, I just don’t think that I stop to realize exactly HOW blessed I am a lot of times. I had parents who taught me what was acceptable and what wasn’t and who provided MORE than what I needed materially for a comfortable life even if I didn’t realize it at the time. I had parents who took me to church as a child and I have had a few good role models as well. I have never been without a Bible, the knowledge of God, positive influences in my life or discipline.....believe it or not, I did get spankings.....quite a few! I haven’t always made wise choices, but I have never had friends who have tried to sway me into anything I didn’t want to do. I’ve just had a blessed life so far and I know it. I have thought a lot this week about the contrast of the life I have had versus what this guy that broke into my car has probably had, so I am going to be praying for him and others in this community that may need it. I hope you will too.