Can you tell I’m way less forgiving than you are? I prolly should work on that.

In case you didn’t know, I found your blog through DadGoneMad. I’ve posted a complete list of everyone who left their blog link on his Big Big Stars post in a post of my own called Blog Rolling With My Homies over on my blog, so if you want to see it come on over and sit a spell. I don’t bite..…that hard anyway!

If you did know just overlook this since my brain feels like mush from trying to comment on all 217 on the list!!

Unfortunately, forgiveness and calling the police were mutually exclusive actions in this case. You can read above about her burning anger, her desire to have the cops “beat down his door.” She wanted to make sure he got in trouble for this. Would it have been legal? Absolutely. Ethical? Probably, depending on your ethical code. Biblical? Not in this case.

With respect to Biblical teachings, there’s nothing wrong with reporting crimes to the police. There is something wrong with doing it in order to get revenge. I think Cassandra chose the better half – before we try to intervene in others’ lives, we need to make sure we have our own under control. Although not everone takes the Bible as their authority, I hope you can respect that we do and that this is the right decision based on its teachings. She learned a lot from forgiving this kid. I think it made her a better Christian, and I’m proud to be her husband.

He may not deserve to be forgiven, but isn’t that part of the very definition of forgiveness? “To pardon an offense or an offender” – you can’t forgive someone unless they deserve to be punished.

…Besides, from what Cassandra told me, the kid was kind of freaked out that she tracked him down. He’s well aware that he got within an inch of the law. Hopefully he will see the error of his ways; if not, he has only himself to blame.

And if he was willing to play the little comforting angel game immediately after stealing your phone I’d be much more inclined to have the authorities intervene in his life; something has gone wrong with his upbringing and he isn’t just “getting by”; he’s creating victims.