Hello RPM,
I'm sorry about your loss both in terms of time and money, and I can certainly sympathize with your frustration over being able to do nothing about it.
This past December my wife's purse was stolen and aside from the immediate loss of the cash in it, we had to deal with the fraudulent use of the credit cards including several attempts to use them and my identity to obtain goods over the internet. We've also detected two attempts to establish new lines of credit, one in my wife's name and one attempt at establishing a corporate account with a company in Colorado in the name of our church if you can believe it. Although my wife saw the woman who took her purse, we have not been able to do anything about it. We also suffered a $300 loss recently with a company that took our money, never delivered our goods, repeatedly told us "the items were on their way," then went out of business and disappeared from sight. I was told that tracking them down would take more effort than the money was worth. Then just this morning our credit report was dinged by a collection agency for a debt we paid off with the company that sold the debt a year ago. The original company acknowledges we paid it off, but because someone recorded my name as "Angela Webb" a letter to the collection agency proving that "Andrew Webb" paid off his debt was apparently ignored. I list these things not to complain, but merely to point out that justice in the matter of mammon is hard to come by on this side of heaven and that as Thomas Fuller observed long ago "Riches are long in getting with much pains, hard in keeping with much care, quick in losing with more sorrow."
All of this helps me to remember that the things I have are only so much dust and that I will some day part with all of them (as Fuller also said: "Riches may leave us while we live, we must leave them when we die.") and that to make them the center of my concerns will only cause me great bitterness and in a way reflect the self-destructive covetousness of the very people who would steal them from me - certainly I don't want my real treasure and therefore my heart to be in my wallet. If I needed any reminders of that fact, the number of senseless arguments over money I see in marriage counseling would be enough of a reminder. The only value these things have lies in what good we use them for anyway. So when it comes to mammon, hold on loosely and don't allow your fiscal circumstances (good or bad) to rule your life or become a root of bitterness.
Just one question related to your original post, though. I'm wondering what you wanted to happen - people to stop being so concerned about illegal immigration because all races commit theft and fraud or for some sort of change in the legal system in your area or something else I'm missing completely?
- SEAGOON
