JOY!

One beautiful Fall day, me and a few of my friends decided to go to a nature center with our children. When we pulled into the parking lot, I took note of a small red car with a single person in the car. I got a funny feeling, but let it go and thought it was because I was dreading the REALLY long walk! The group I was with had three fifteen passenger vans and a regular van. We unloaded the troups and were on our way. About half way thru' our trail a ranger came running up to us and said "did you come in the extended vans"??? He proceeded to tell us after we gave him an affirmative to his question, that two of the vans had been broken into. That got our attention and we ran all the way back to the parking lot.....................Sure enough , Vanna White (my vans name) had the driver's window smashed and my purse was gone......dumb person ..I didn't even have it locked! The other girlfriend, Vicki, also had the same thing! My other friend's van was left alone (could be because she had a big saint bernard in it. She also had all her casework for adopting a child from Bulgaria on the front seat, so it's a good thing the thief didn't get that!!!
It was frustrating cleaning the mess up and filling out the police report. The officer didn't give us much hope of recovery. The bad news was.......I had everyone of our families social security cards in my wallet. The college my oldest son went to kept having problems with my financial aid applications and they kept rejecting the number sisteen in our family! The day before I had to prove that there really was sixteen of us, so I brought everything to the college and it wouldn't work for the financial aid person until she tried the number nine (that's another story). SOOOOOOOOOOO...I didn't take out the cards and people started to warn me of identity theft (I was thinking if someone wanted my I.D. they'd be responsible for all my debt..) Anyway, I didn't have too much else in my wallet, but I did just cash a check for forty dollars for my sons when they babysat for someone.They were upset, too!!!
We prayed for the thief and asked for the money to come back. A couple of days later my friend got a call from the police saying they found two purses in a dumptster in Waukesha. There was no wallet in one purse so I didn't get a call. Vicki went to the police station and got her purse and recognized mine so she brought that to me. When I got it back I desperately dumped mine out hoping against hope that my wallet was there, and it was just to much of a mess to be seen easily. My wallet did not appear, but Vicki laughed because an ornament fell out. It was a large sliver star that simply said JOY. Vicki said, "At least they didn't steal your joy"!!!
The story doesn't end there. About a week later I received a call from a Hispanic person saying they found my wallet. I had a hard time understanding him because of the language barrier. I was given directions (to a terrible part of the town) and rang a door bell and walked up a narrow flight of stairs. It wasn't very smart of me to go alone but.... a woman opened the door and handed me MY WALLET!!! All I had to offer her was ten dollars, but I thanked her, gave her all the money I had and gave her a hug and left. When I looked in the wallet, the forty dollars was gone, but EVERYTHING else was intact! The cards, social security , liscence etc. WOW!!! I was thankful and relieved!
When I went to church the next Sun. someone came up to me with an envelope and handed it to me, and told me it was from someone else who didn't want me to know. I opened the envelope and there was a nice card in it and ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS! That is exactly double of what was stolen! Isahiah 61:7 says " Instead of your shame you shall have double honor and instead of confusion they shall REJOICE in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; Everlasting JOY shall be theirs. "
Is God in control or what????!!!! Coincidence??? I Know It's not!!!!!!!