The Case of the Shoe-Napper

Living in Jerusalem has its advantages. One advantage is that the weather is roughly the same as in Southern California except that, I am told, it rains here. Other than that we experience a very similar weather pattern. This time of year the daytime temperatures get up to 20 degrees Celsius and at night it drops to 10. (Okay, I am still American so the temperatures are 70 during the day and 50 at night in Fahrenheit).
Back to the point, the advantage of weather like this is that one can wear shorts (if you want to look American) and you can wear sandals everyday, which is very common here. This week someone stole my boys' shoes from outside our front door (in a locked building) so they have been reduced to wearing their sandals. Now on to the real point of this post.
Shoes. Someone who lives in our building of 12 units stole my boys' shoes. It is amazing how shoes can feel so personal. How can shoes being stolen make us feel so violated and disappointed? I honestly spent a day or two thinking about how awful it is to have shoes stolen. To make it worse, we just bought those shoes when we arrived in Israel so I feel that someone took 150 shekels from me. As I consider who lives in this building, I can assume (understanding what assuming will probably do to me) that these shoes were not stolen out of need but rather out of spite. Only 4 units in this apartment have children and ours is the only one with a boy over 7 years old so it is unlikely that someone needed a 7-year-old's pair of shoes. Also, we are the only ones in the entire building who are of a different religion than the others. Having said this I am sure we will find the shoes under a bed this week and I truly will fulfill the etymology of the word "ass-u-me", but if not, here is the lesson.
For several weeks now we have attended a Christian church here in Jerusalem that embraces the Messiah Jesus. This church and the people of this church face weekly dilemmas in following Christ. In the past month, the building was burned, one associated member was murdered in Gaza, and another person has his life under a serious threat in the West Bank. Each week we pray for these people, but more importantly, we pray for the ones who are doing these things. The church has made it clear that we will not hold grudges and that we will love and forgive those who burn our churches and take our lives. Nobody mentioned loving and forgiving those who take our shoes but after giving this some thought (and after examining the feet of every kid in the neighborhood) I decided that shoes probably apply in this scenario.
So, if someone stole my boys' shoes because they needed shoes, praise God that we could help them with their need. If someone stole our boys' shoes because they do not like those who follow the Messiah Jesus, then praise God that we are considered worthy of facing these challenges. If no one stole the shoes and they are lost under a bed, then praise God that we looked under the bed. And Praise God that we can wear sandals!