The Witness

I was sitting in my office last week and I witnessed a crime. Around four o'clock the perp (that's TV slang for perpetrator) was walking on the other side of the street when this person stopped, looked back at my neighbor's porch, and saw a garment package leaning against their door. The perp turned, walked up to the door, and stole the package. 

As one can imagine the effect of witnessing such evil, my heart was racing. I yelled out the door in my most thunderous voice, "Put it back!" The perp looked back thinking it was the thunderous voice of God. Well...the perp looked back because I was yelling from my upstairs office window out of view from where the perp had already walked. 

Ready to right a social wickedness I ran downstairs with my phone loaded and ready to shoot. The problem is...I am absolutely ignorant on how to use the thing. I couldn't figure out how to take a picture and what is the non-emergency number for the police? The perp was long gone when I finally arrived outside to call them. 

However, my keen skills of exegetical prowess, examining the Scriptures for details, have well-equipped me for giving complete descriptions.  I proceeded to describe the perp to the authorities with almost divine precision. 

For a brief moment I panicked. I thought that I was going to have to pack a travel bag, leave Deb a note, and go live with an Amish family in Indiana (reference to the movie The Witness with Harrison Ford).  But that's probably where they would look first since I grew up around there. I was a witness to a crime. I snitched. And now the full wrath of the ungodly was probably coming my way. Thank God I'm saved. "O Death where is thy sting..."  I didn't want to know. 

Things were made worse when the police knew this person by name, proceeded to bring the perp over to MY HOUSE, and ask if this was, indeed, the perpetrator of the crime. Shaking internally, but with steel outward resolve, I affirmed. 

Of course there was immediate denial: my word against the perp's. But I had done my civic duty and if I must suffer, so be it. I began to pray the imprecatory psalms where David asks the Lord to cut the hands off of his enemies. However, in my heart I knew that there was a heart issue at hand. Something was broken inside this person. There was a need...not for stuff...this person didn't look poor, but a need for...purpose...I don't know.  Why does anyone steal things?  Because they can?  Because they want to? 

Yes, the thought of wondering about the quality of the parents entered my mind but then I was reminded that King Saul had his Jonathan and King David had his Absalom. The parent does not necessarily make the child. Military or some rigid boarding school might.....

Anyway...just a reminder that my world is broken.  Thankful it wasn't my stuff. And thankful it wasn't one of my girls.  You see the perp was a teenage girl. 

I'll never be able to walk comfortably in a mall again....