Heather and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day(s)

I want to tell you about the Easter basket cookies that I made for Friend Day at church…and how I didn’t burn them and how cute they were and how good I felt for being so domestic…

I also want to tell you about the date that I had…and how much fun I had and how nice it was to feel like a princess and not a mom or a youth leader…

I’d like to tell you about Matthew’s performance tonight in the All County Choir and how handsome he looked, and how well he sang, and how proud I was to be his mother…

I would also like to share with you how I found a ring that I thought was gone forever and how I found it yesterday…and how grateful I was and how amazing it was that I found it… in a place that I thought I had looked a million times…

And then there’s our field trip tomorrow to Washington, DC that I’d love to tell you about and how we get to get up at 4:30 in the morning so that we can be to the school by 5:15 so that we can leave by 5:30.. these would all be AM… we’ll get back sometime around midnight…

Yes, I’d love to tell you all about these things… but they will have to wait.

I listed the good things that happened to me first, because I need you to know that I know how wonderfully blessed that I am.

However, Sunday night, while I sat here on my couch watching Sydney White with my children (it was good, rent it) someone hacked into my PayPal account. I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t click on any links. I know that the kids don’t know my password, but somehow, someway, someone or ones got in there.

And in two hours, just two, almost $3,000 was taken from me.

Yesterday, only $1300 had posted but by 5pm today the rest (despite the bank’s and PayPal’s reassurances) were sitting in my pending transactions and my checking account severely in the red.

I’m not telling you this because I want money (because I don’t)… I have money. It just so happens that I have a pretty large check sitting on my desk that I forgot to deposit yesterday when I was at the bank making sure everything was taken care of… think the Lord made me forget? I do.

But in addition to the PayPal mess, yesterday I also dropped my brand new, only had it a month, cell phone… 6 inches… seriously… and it’s broken. I probably wouldn’t mind except I heart my Treo and it’s expensive and it’s a company phone.

So I called down to the stations and I asked them to send me a new one after explaining what happened. They overnighted one to me so that I would have a means of communication tomorrow while I am in DC with one child while another remains in Roanoke.

It arrived today.

It doesn’t work.

Go figure.

I did go out last night. I went dancing. I had an amazing time. I felt so alive. Not once yesterday did I get discouraged about what was happening. I knew it would all work itself out. I knew that I would be okay. People commented on how well I was handling this. Because really? What would crying accomplish? I also think that the prayers from Karen yesterday helped, even though I didn’t ask her to pray for me… she just did.

It was a huge step for me.

But today? After seeing the rest of my money disappear and a broken cell phone, I broke down.

Even though I knew I had money and even though I knew that everything would be okay and even though I have the faith that this will all be taken care of, I still managed to sit down and cry.

Had Matthew not been performing tonight, I’m not sure that I would’ve stopped crying. And the moment that child took the stage tonight, I had the biggest smile on my face.

But it was interesting. As I was driving to the concert, talking to my friend, trying to talk on a broken cell phone and continually getting cut off and having to call back, she said to me… “hey… did you read today’s devotion?”

after about 4 tries to talk to her, I got the point, but I came home and read it for myself…

“…Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” Genesis 50:20a (KJV)

But then it said this…

“The Lord orchestrates what the enemy does and makes it accomplish His purpose.”

Chew on that for a bit.

I have been… all night.

Despite all that’s happened over the last few days, I am an incredibly blessed woman and I know it.

I don’t know how this is all going to turn out. I’d like to think that I’ll get all my money back and I can go on living. Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. But I do know that this will turn out the way that it is supposed to. And I will continue living on faith.

Until next time…

Heather