The Chain Incident

I am a thief. I purposely took an item, clandestinely hid it and walked out of the store with it having no intention of paying for it. And, I got away with it - for 38 years.

There I said it. I got it out into the bright light of day. And I certainly think the statute of limitations has run.

When I was little we owned a farm outside of town - no, a ranch, no, let's call it a piece of property with cows on it. My favorite cow was "Bossy," and our bull was "JohnJohn" (see, it was no ranch - what ranch names its livestock?) My dad took the family here on weekends so we could escape the city and play "Griswolds go Cowboy." This was a charming place. No indoor plumbing or air-conditioning. I fondly recall traipsing off with shovel and toilet paper in hand to the grove of yupon bushes by the back fence before bed. "Be careful where you squat, you don't want to get bit by a copperhead." Ahh, childhood.

From time to time, dad would need a few supplies from the feed/hardware store in town. This was a great place. It had amazing wonders that a regular city hardware store didn't. Oats and barley in huge burlap sacks. The molasses oats smelled so wonderful. I wanted to be a horse just so I could try some! Nails loose in tubs. I would just bury my hands in the nails. They were so shiny and pointed. I wanted dad to have something for us to hammer and build so we could use that giant scoop used to measure out the nails. And they sold saddles and all sorts of stuff for horses. This place was a Wonderland!

I had to have something. I asked dad to buy me this thing and that thing and always the answer was "no, we don't need that." Need? Who ever said anything about need? As I wandered off dejected I spied these big spools of chains. How cool. So this is how you by a chain. They make it really long and you cut off just how much you need. "Hey dad, we need a chain don't we?" "No." Crushing blow and right in front of the cashier. Skulk away. But what does my little eye spy next to the spools of chains? But a length of chain that someone cut but did not buy!

Without a seconds thought that chain was off the floor and into my little 6 year old blue jean pocket with the ironed on patch over the hole in the knee. How no one, especially either of my parents or my brother, saw the enormous bulge in my pocket is still beyond me. But I marched right out of that store and got into our car with all the "I just showed you" pride in the world. I had a chain - just think of all the things I could do with that!

The bummer about stealing something is that you have to keep it a secret. You can't go around shouting "Ta Da look what I have!" especially not in front of the person who told you you could not have it. I couldn't tell anyone about my big score. Nor could I play with my contraband or allow it out into the bright light of day, lest I risk getting caught and have to return it and get a talking to (a fate worse than death.) And that would defeat the whole point - dad said no but I said yes and I won. What am I going to do with this thing I can't talk about or play with? Well, this is certainly turning into no fun fast.

Here's the other bummer about stealing - it begins to eat away at you. Eventually, the pride over my accomplishment wore off. With no one to show off to who cares that I have this stupid chain. I got the thing back to Houston and had to hide it in the deepest, darkest part of my closet so mom would not discover it. I had no use for a chain in the city. What does a 6 year old girl need a foot-long length of chain for - she doesn't.

This secret became less and less fun the longer I held it. Finally, after over a year I had had enough of that chain eating away at my conscious. I had to get rid of it. But how? I could not just throw it in the kitchen or bathroom trash. The perfect plot was hatched when I remembered my 9 year old brother had a briefcase - do not ask me why a 9 year old had a briefcase, I do not know. The point is he had one and it was the perfect foil for getting the kryptonite out of my closet and out of the house. I borrowed the case when my brother was out and put the chain in it; I then told my mom I was going out "to a meeting" - I was an imaginative child and pronouncements like this generally did not raise eyebrows. Once out the back door I ran to the garbage can and buried the sordid chain as far down in that beat-up metal container I as could. Ahhh, chain gone, burden lifted.

Everything was right again with my world. Sort of.

No one ever did find out. But of course, there was Someone that always knew. Someone who watched me as I stole it. When God knows you know He knows and knows you don't want to talk about it - that's usually when He wants to talk about it. And He is very patient and will wait to talk when you are ready, even if it takes 38 years.

You know, that chain has been a thorn in my side since the day I stole it. When I have thought about it I have always tried to think of it as this hilarious thing I did as a little kid. A joke I pulled. But in reality it has never once given me a moment's pleasure. Well, maybe one moments worth, those first few when I first shoved it into my pocket and ran out of the store with it but none since then. And I think I know why - I knew it was wrong when I did it. I did it because I was mad that I didn't get my way. I thought I was pulling one over on my dad and as it turns out I was pulling a huge one over on me. And 38 years is a long time to live with something stuck in your craw.

So that brings me back to God wanting to talk about it. I keep thinking of this "chain incident" lately. Why? That's over. I threw it away, never played with it, never stole again - what more is there? Plenty.

There is repentance and forgiveness. I haven't done one nor asked for the other - not in all these years.

The bible says we are separated from God by our sinning. God is so grieved to be even the littlest separated from us. And unless we repent and ask for His forgiveness - which by the way He has to give us, isn't that cool - we remain separate from Him and the circle is unclosed. And an unclosed circle makes sinning easier and easier because we just get farther and farther from Him. He knows this, that's why even an act that took place when I was 6 is so important to Him. And why He kept pursuing me about it.

Is there something stuck in your craw? Some nagging corner of your heart that won't let go? Why not think about seeing if there is a little old something something that you need to talk to your Heavenly Father about. Confession is mighty good for the soul - even when it comes 38 years late.