I did chop down that cherry tree...

Somebody stole my tax refund check and cashed it. This awful somebody rummaged through my mailbox, took the check, signed my name in atrocious cursive that looks nothing like my own and CASHED MY CHECK!! I have been waiting for my tax refund check to arrive for months--3 months actually--and I finally called the IRS a week ago. They said, "That check was sent out to you on April 30...Are you sure you don't have it?" April 30? No I don't have it! I don't have it anywhere. I have been checking the mail every day, including Sundays, hoping for this check to arrive. This happened last year too, except last year they discovered that it really was never sent. Well, the nice IRS lady assured me that they would start a search. On Saturday, I received a letter from the IRS and as I read the first page I could hardly believe my eyes. It said, "Your check was cashed. Enclosed is a copy of the signed check." Are you kidding me? I fumbled through the pages to the very last one and there it was--a copy of the refund check made out to me dated April 30 and it was signed by someone who is most definitely not me and obviously does not know me well enough to have ever seen my signature. It is not a good feeling to see your name signed by a stranger. How could they have cashed it without ID? I have all of my photo IDs, debit cards, etc. in my possession. I called my mother, who was ironically in the middle of playing Monopoly with my three youngest siblings--a game I am not particularly fond of because I am not ruthless or business savvy enough to ever win--and she said that it must have been cashed at some shady hole-in-the-wall. She must be right. "This always happens to me!" I wailed. Then I stopped and thought and felt a little guilty. You see, I can honestly say that I have never stolen any one's check, or sneakily forged a signature to get money or told a lie that put an innocent man in jail or anything like that. I mean that is obviously deceitful and I would not consider myself a deceitful person at all. Or should I? The majority of the time, I am an honest person, but I'm ashamed to say, I tell little white lies and half truths and whole lies sometimes. Don't I occasionally pass the blame when things go wrong even though I know I had a hand in it? Am I really any better than whoever lied and stole my money? I wish I could say yes. I wish, but I know better. I have a well-developed guilt complex and I can remember just about every lie I've ever told, going back to when I was a child. Well, you might say, that can't be very many lies then, and besides everyone tells lies now and then. The thing is, it doesn't take a million lies to make you a liar. One lie is enough. We teach children to be truthful, but we grown-ups seem to be okay with fudging the truth a bit. Or fudging the truth a lot. It's too bad really that we don't have Pinocchio's condition. If our noses grew every time we lied, most of us would have unbelievably long noses and they would always be getting caught in doors and bumping into things. That's what lies do anyway, isn't it, trip us up. Of course, the truth is so very uncomfortable sometimes. I read "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom some years ago. She was a Dutch Christian and during WWII, she and her family helped to rescue hundreds of Jewish people. At one point in the book, Ms. ten Boom describes an afternoon when she was having tea at her sister's house. Her sister had several young children and they had all been taught to always tell the truth. German soldiers suddenly burst in and demanded to know if they were hiding any Jews. Corrie ten Boom and her sister said nothing, but to their horror, one of the children spoke up and calmly answered "Yes". Ms. ten Boom recounts her irritation, thinking this was the exact wrong moment to tell the truth. "Yes?" the soldier replied, probably delighted to get such an easy answer. "Where are they hiding?" The child said "Under the table." I'm sure the two women felt sick. I felt sick. There was, in fact, a trap door beneath the table leading to a secret room where a group of Jews was hiding. If I were her mother, I would want to pinch that girl to make her stop, but if you know anything about children, you know that would have made things worse. While the women held their breath, the soldier lifted up the table cloth and peered underneath. "There's no one there." he said, and assuming the little girl was simply playing a game, the soldiers left. Amazing. So as I stood there sadly in my house, the ugly signature staring back at me, I had a revelation. "Maybe," I said, "maybe God is trying to show me something about myself. I may not do what this person did, but I have my own issues to work on. It's easy to make comparisons and overlook my faults. Perhaps this is a wake-up call." Am I upset with whoever stole my check. Um yeah! But there's something to be learned. I need frequent evaluations to keep me in line. Besides, if I'd gotten the money when it was first sent, I might have spent it too soon. Now I have to prove that I didn't sign the check etc. etc. and hopefully it will work out smoothly this time...