This past Friday, after our Tuskegee summer ministry team was wrapping up the afternoon, a woman arrived at the church. She explained her involvement in a car accident. The ministry interns were trying to decide how to help and momentarily left her unattended in the fellowship hall. Our ARM merchandise table is stacked with ARM shirts, hats, cups and more. Earlier that day, the staff had a small fundraiser and a few mason jars that had some bills and change in them were in the room.
When the staff came back into the fellowship hall to help, she had disappeared. As they looked across our back lot into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, they noticed her. She was now outfitted with an ARM sweatshirt (in nearly 90-degree weather) and baseball cap. There was also $40 in cash missing from one of the mason jars.
What would you feel in that moment? Anger? Frustration? Confusion? How could anyone boldly come into a church and steal from it? That money goes to help families with home repair, something she may not have known. Is there no decency anymore that someone can blatantly steal from the church and in broad day light? What nerve!
It was time to call the police. They described to the police what had happened and the police quickly arrived on the scene and picked up the woman. End of story, right? However, the police added some unknown details shedding some new light. The woman was mentally ill. During transport to a mental institution in Birmingham she had fallen out of the car. I guess that is how she defined a car accident. (That raises some questions on how well she was being supervised). The police had been searching for her with no luck until the students called.
As I pondered this situation, I felt myself overwhelmed with compassion for this woman, this daughter of Jesus. Before I knew the fuller story, I was wrestling with whether we needed to press charges or if we could design some type of community service. Hearing of her condition, that was quickly resolved. But then I thought further. If she had not stolen from our staff nothing would have triggered our students to call the police. They would have worked to meet her need and then sent her on her way. This meant she would have wandered aimlessly through the town. Night would fall and she would be a lone, vulnerable, and mentally ill woman navigating the streets of Tuskegee. No phone, no family, no friends.
Not fully cognizant of her actions, stealing may have saved her life. Funny how God can work in the hardest and most difficult of situations. God can use anything for His good and in the strangest of ways, He provides. This summer our day camp kids have a theme called “COGPOW” meaning Child of God, Person of Worth. After this woman’s actions, this puts COGPOW in a whole new light for me.
May we all have compassion and display love even when someone is doing something wrong. God may be providing care in a crazy, foolish, and upside- down way. I love our God! Jehovah-Jira, God our Provider!
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