The Virtuous Daughter Magazine Fall 2017 edition Cherish | Page 40

Once when I was 15, a
young TCK in Spain, I
saved up all the babysit-
ting money I could gather
over months and months
and bought myself my
first ever digital camera.
It was a big deal to me,
and I loved having it. Not
too many months after I
had bought it, I left it on
a cupboard in my living
room on a day that doz-
ens and dozens of people
came in and out of my
house to pick up vegeta-
bles from the food bank.
In the course of the very
busy day, someone took it
for themselves.
It had been a clumsy mis-
take; I knew I shouldn’t ever
leave something valuable laying out for
someone to grab when so many people came in a
day. But I forgot, and now it was gone.
I cried, and I remember my mom cried with me. I’d worked really hard to
purchase that camera, and some of the money had been a gift. Because our vi-
sas were categorized as “religious workers” I wasn’t legally allowed to get a job,
so the money I could make was rare and far between. And my parents certainly
didn’t have extra, donated money to spend on something as trivial as my own
personal camera.
But God promised that He turns everything into good for those that love Him.
And even this thing that seemed like such a big deal to me at 15 turned into
something good in my life. I laid on my bed in a little pool of self-pity, but af-
ter an internal struggle I gave that little camera to Jesus. Once I surrendered
40
it, He filled me with love towards the person that had stolen it. By pure grace
that came from outside of me and my own reactions, I prayed that the camera
would give this person the money they needed, and that they would know I
forgave them.
To this day, I don’t know who stole that camera, and I never saw it again. I
know it was probably a friend—it was someone who had entered my home—
but after I surrendered, I stopped minding who took it or why. Wonderfully, it
turned into a tool to share with the entire community what Jesus’ forgiveness
means. Everyone heard about the story and talked to my family about it, horri-
fied that we had been robbed from our own living room when we had opened
our doors to share what we could. And every time, I could tell them that I truly
don’t mind a missing camera, and explain the forgiveness Jesus gave to me and
that it is why I can freely forgive others. I’m guessing I even got to tell that story
to whoever it was that stole the camera in the first place.
Before Jesus came to Earth, there
was an allowance
41