Robbery, the Rich, and the Children Are Watching

We're back from a winter Puerto Rico vacation where we surfed, got sunburned, and were robbed while we lounged on the beach. We're minus the cash, a cell phone, a bunch of credit cards & drivers' licenses, a graphing calculator and all of my son's homework.

While filing the police reports in broken Spanish, it occured to me that my kids were watching, and this $1200 loss was possibly the price of a powerful life lesson they would never forget.

So, what could we salvage out of this, and what could we teach our kids that would be worth $1200?

Here's what we came up with: "They have stolen our money, but they will not steal our joy and they will not steal our vacation, or they will have stolen triple from us."

It also occured to me that, to get my $1200 worth, we need to teach the kids something about prayer for the next 1200 nights. (A dollar a night isn't too much for this lesson)

So here's the goofy Melheimian committment. We'll be praying for the robbers every night from now on until my daughter graduates. (About 1200 nights) Our prayers, along with those for Grandpa, the tsunami victims, and the cousins, will be that our gracious and amazingly generous God would bless these crooks so richly that one day, lavished in love, they'll turn around. I'm secretly adding a prayer that one day our kids will be at a church somewhere where a former robber stands up and gives a testamony saying, "I used to be a theif, but God kept blessing me, and blessing me, and blessing me, and finally I had to give it up. God is just too good!"

I'm going to pay a little every night to teach my kids - and myself - about following Jesus command to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Some people pay more than that for an education.