Yesterday wasn’t an overly strange day, but two things of interest made me feel like sharing them with the world. The first is identification theft. The second is a child’s early interest in writing.
Let me begin with the first issue–the curse.
The Curse
Hardly ten minutes had ticked by after I walked through our home’s front door last night. My wife checked the messages on our answering machine and there were at least four for me. I had four messages, from four different people, each with the same message, and they were all from the fraud department of my credit card company.
Not a good sign, I assure you.
Each message said to call them right away, which I obviously did. They wanted to go over some recent charges on my card to determine whether or not they were fraudulent.
Apparently someone got a hold of my credit card information and went online to make a $.03 purchase. Yes, only three cents. After going over the other charges, this was the only one out-of-place.
$.03
Not $300.
$.03.
It seems that someone was testing the waters of internet theft to see if my card number was any good, if the charge would ever be noticed, and if they could use it again later for larger purchases.
How very thoughtful of them.
I ultimately agreed with my credit card company’s fraud department that we should cancel the credit card number and that they should issue a new one, which I would receive in about five days or so.
What a hassle! Now I have to contact a few companies that had my credit card number on automatic renewal. And for only $.03 mind you.
This little escapade got me thinking about how we often do that with a multitude of sinful things in this life as well. How often do so many of us “test the waters” in various things just to see if we can get away with it. And if we can, we’ll push the envelope a bit further next time.
$.03 worth of gossip.
$.03 worth of slander.
$.03 worth of lust.
$.03 worth of anger.
$.03 worth of______________ (you fill in the blank).
Yes, I think that all too often we’re very much like my mystery cyberspace friend that cost me time, hassle and, thankfully, only $.03.
But enough of crying over the spilled milk of mere pennies. Let me tell you about the blessing.
The Blessing
My oldest son, Camden, simply loves to read books. He’s like a sponge and can easily punch through 300 pages in a day. His reading ability puts mine to shame.
Not bad for an eleven year old kid.
But his love for reading adventure stories is turning him into a writer, as well. And that is the blessing, at least for me.
His imagination now has him typing away on a computer as he creates his own adventure stories. It’s marvelous to see him creating the characters of his story, giving them personalities, problems, names, and watching him develop the plot.
It’s his first attempt at trying to be an author and I feel blessed just to have children who are interested in things like this. What a joy!
Each of my five children are different, are wonderful, have their own unique personalities, giftedness, and fascinations, but each of them are an individual gem in my pocket.
I’m rich. How awesome is God to give me a quiver full of such blessings!
He’s certainly no Mark Twain just yet. But let’s give him a year or two and then we’ll see. 🙂
QUESTION FOR COMMENTING BELOW: Concerning your children, what things have you been thankful for over the past week?
* Photo credit: courosa (Creative Commons)
QUESTION FOR COMMENTING BELOW: Concerning your children, what things have you been thankful for over the past week?