You Truly Are My Joy

Well, when I mentioned that my joy had been robbed I didn't mean literally. Now, I mean literally.

Last night we had an event to go to at a church in Austin, which Jason was in charge of. He has been sick all week. He's had fever every day except for 1 and he has thrown up at least 16 times in the past day. He is sick!!!! After we had been there a little while, Jason started getting sick at the event and we decided to leave early.

When we got home someone had apparently been there. I think we scared them off when we opened the door. They only had time to take our Playstation and some DVD's (which is no real loss). We called the cops, they came, took fingerprints, the whole bit. The thieves apparently used gloves because they couldn't get a usable fingerprint. At 10:00 last night they left. Jason and I went to bed feeling very violated (I felt like they had seen me naked or something).

Well, me being the scaredy cat I am, I stayed up with most of our lights on, watched TV, and had a large stick next to our bed. I was in the middle of a late night showing of "Mickey Blue Eyes" when I heard 3 loud knocks on our door at about 3:30am. I jumped up, ready to rumble with these criminals, and answered the door. It was the cop and they had found the robbers.

Sorry this is so long but keep reading, the story becomes quite humorous.

The cop asked Jason if he could come with him to i.d. the stolen stuff. Jason followed the cop to the local Motel 6 where these so-called thieves had beat the crap out of each other. They got into a fight over the Playstation and had a rumble. One guy was hurt so badly he had to go to the hospital. They basically ratted themselves out by having a drunken brawl over a Playstation, our Playstation to be exact.

As if that wasn't dumb enough, one of the items they stole from our apartment was our video camera. I guess they thought they would document their genius heist, because they began filming their every step after they left our house. Dumb & Dumber!!! So, when Jason got there, at least 3 drunk guys were waiting to be arrested. Two were lying about what they did, and one was spilling the beans (remember one was at the hospital, and we don't know how many there were total). They put the two liars into one of the police cars. What they didn't know was that all cop cars have recorders in them. They were probably confessing everything but they were too drunk to care.

Jason got to watch the whole thing go down. He identified the stuff and left. As he was pulling away he saw the robbers getting cuffed and stuffed and slapped with felony theft charges. At 10:00pm the cops left our house and at 5:00am, the thieves were being taken to jail. Justice was served and my prayer for returned joy was answered. I was truly joyous that in the midst of this situation we kept thanking Jesus and he in return blessed us with closure, and graciousness. He didn't have to give us the satisfaction of these guys getting caught in order for us to praise him, but because he is so awesome, he did!

Last night Jason and I did go to sleep feeling very violated but also thanking Jesus that it was what it was. It could have been much worse. Stuff is just stuff. Thank you Jesus for reminding me that you are still in control. Even when we might not know why certain things happen, thank you for giving us enough strength, through your Spirit, to keep going and to continually praise You no matter the circumstance. Now I can say without hesitation, without restraint, without caution, and with full faith that you truly are MY JOY!!!!