I had an interesting evening last night.
I went to church worship band practice, then stayed for our monthly board meeting. When board meeting let out a little after 8, there was a stranger sitting in one of the pews crying Nobody heard him come in from where we were in the community room. Pastor, two other men, and I stayed with him, and shared some of the Good News with him. One of the men left to get him some food from their house, and while he was gone, the stranger got up and said he needed some fresh air, so we let him walk out. After a minute, we heard a truck start up and leave, and we hung around to see if he would come back.
After a while, we got up to go home, and when we walked out, my truck was gone! A strange truck was still in the parking lot. We looked it over, and from some of the attributes of the truck, we decided it might be stolen as well. We gave him a few more minutes, then I called the state troopers in. We waited over 2 hours for them to show up, and I finished giving my report a little after 1:00 this morning.
Fast forward to 7:00 this morning, I was driving my company vehicle to work, when my phone started going bonkers. The stranger came back to the church, with my truck! After the pastor made him breakfast and talked to him, he agreed to surrender to the troopers, who showed up much more quickly when they were called this time. Before they took him, I was able to talk to him on the phone, and he broke down and apologized to me, and I got the opportunity to forgive him.
I am at peace with the whole thing, and I am so amazed at the call on his heart that God placed. He could have been long gone, but he realized it was time to face the consequences of his actions. Since the truck he came to the church in turned out to be stolen from Missouri, and wearing stolen Texas plates, he won't be seeing the outside of a prison very much for a long time, but I have hope that his heart is seeing redemption, and maybe he can begin the long road back to the straight and narrow.
