Checkbook Connection: A Story of Reconciliation After 30 Years
There are many things that I appreciate about having grown up Catholic – I love kneelers, and stained-glass windows, traditions, and, well… I love Lent. It’s a season of preparation, reflection, and repentance that is, sadly to me, practiced less frequently among Protestant churches. I do think there is great benefit in remembering the importance of regularly confessing our sin to God (Psalm 32:1-4) and to one another (James 5:16), and the spiritual, relational, and psychological benefits it brings. It is one of the reasons I love the season of Lent – that season of returning to the cross year after year, remembering the weight, and the joy of the weight lifted.
We all have a few stories to tell, and this is one that I love. Perhaps I love it so much because it gave me a clear view again of the beauty of the cross and joy of seeing the weight of sin lifted.
It began back when I was still in high school. I was working at a local gas station, in a day when teen age girls were somehow allowed to work alone at a gas station, with thousands of dollars in their till, with a constant flow of complete strangers coming and going all day and night to purchase gas and wash their cars. I’m not entirely sure what the adults in my life were thinking. I don’t think they were completely comfortable with it either, but there I stood, working behind the counter with the car wash door to my right, the register (filled with thousands of dollars) to my left, the safe (for which of course I knew the combination, since that’s where I stashed the day’s earnings), and the glass door propped open before me. It was a spring afternoon, and outside above the door read the sign, “Riiser’s gas station, Gas, $1.31/gal.”. During a brief lull in activity, a young man drove up on his bicycle, stopping in to ask if he could cash a check. Again, in those days, businesses like ours would regularly cash local checks for customers, for a limited amount, and our station was no exception. We would exchange cash for checks written to the station for up to one hundred dollars. The young man asked if, and for how much he could write a check and when I responded with the hundred dollar limit, he filled out the amount and handed it to me for reimbursement. As I looked down upon the check, however I could see one glaring problem. It bore my brother’s name and MY home address. What are the chances!? This was clearly not this young man’s lucky day…. Or was it? I was alone, and of course there were no other customers in sight. Still, I forcefully announced to him with as much authority as my five-foot-nothing stature could afford, that that was NOT his check, and that he should give ME that checkbook, “right NOW”. He seemed startled, but he did not back down. He asserted that it indeed was his, and wanted his money. I of course wasn’t about to back down either. We argued further for a brief time, but then he ran off and out the door. Thankfully he wasn’t carrying a gun. The rest of the details are a bit sketchy in my memory… I believe I called and was interviewed by police, who eventually interviewed my brother. It turns out, from the police investigation, that prior to this day, my brother had stopped his car to offer a ride to a friend. This friend brought a companion into the car—and it was my brother’s friend’s friend who had noticed and stolen my the checkbook from my brother’s vehicle during the ride. This young man, whom I will call Ben (not his real name), was eventually caught by the police, arrested, and tried. I remember the incident was posted shortly after in the newspaper – noting the freakishness of the “coincidental” failed theft. Perhaps it was a little more noteworthy in my brother’s life, since it was his checkbook that was stolen, but it was a long time ago (30+ years!) and I never really thought about it again. Apparently I did, but I don’t even remember going to court.
Now if that were the end, I’d probably say that’s a pretty interesting story – not something that happens every day… certainly an odd fluke, but that’s not the end. And I think it gets better.
Thirty years pass, and I receive an email via my brother, (sent to him) that reads as follows:
Dear Sir,
I hope this letter finds you well. You may perhaps remember me, I am the one that forged the check belonging to you thirty years or so ago. I am truly sorry for interrupting your life in any manner I did. There are no excuses for my behavior, there may be mitigating circumstances, but that would be more your judgment than mine at this juncture. Just to let you know I have not reoffended and have worked hard to educate myself to what I deem a substantial amount and am working even harder to be of benefit to our race and planet, rather than the blight I was. I sincerely apologize for any and all violation to you. God knows you didn’t deserve that. Please forward my apologies to your sister also. I think about each of you daily and have been too much a coward to have done this previously. I am clean and sober for a while now and it’s past time to atone for my misdeeds. I know this is long overdue. I’m not sure if this will mean anything to you but I needed to do it. I would never even dream of harming another thing during my life. I am sorry. I bid you peace and harmony in all you do.
Sincerely,
(——Ben——-)
It blew both of us away. but what struck me most was the sentence where he said, “I think about each of you daily…” DAILY!!! There are few people outside of my immediate family of whom I think of daily. To think this total stranger has thought of us daily for 30 years, is just astounding to me. But it also really brought home to me a new appreciation for the bondage of guilt that occurs when we have unconfessed sin and broken relationships due to our sin. Needless to say, I offered my forgiveness in a return email:
Dear Mr. (——–),
Thank you for your thoughtful apology. I am sorry that you have carried that guilt around for so long. I have no idea the trouble that brought you to that point, but life is hard, and you were young, and certainly we all make foolish mistakes that we come to regret. I’m so happy to hear that you are in a much better place in life now. Please know that you are truly and completely forgiven by me. My only other thought to you would be to encourage you also to find peace with God, whose forgiveness through Jesus, is even more free and freeing. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Thank you again for your courageous apology and desire to make things right.
Sincerely,
Anne (Becher) Butler
The story continued with this reply:
Dear Anne,
I wanted to apologize to the both of you in the courtroom that day I saw you sitting there, but was far too ashamed to give you more than a glance. I’m glad I got caught and stopped before I really messed up and couldn’t be forgiven. Thank you for your grace and forgiveness. Walking with Christ Jesus is the most liberating and humbling experiences. It is only through the power of God I was able to come to this place and ask to be forgiven. I convulsed at reading your letter, finally releasing the self-loathing (thank you for that release). This life is not mine and I am not here to serve this self. I am in the Light of our Lord and am blessed truly to be able to help others and give all I have to that end. I won’t burden you with the details of my life and what brought me into that business that day, as my story is tame by comparison to many, but a touch extraordinary where God kept showing up at key places to alight my path. I am grateful to you and [your brother] for your grace. I pray you are blessed with all the love of God and that you continue to forgive as you forgave me. If there be ever anything I may do for you please ask, if it be God’s will I will do it. If you wish to know anything more about this person just ask, as my life is now an open book and it’s not about me. But, what I may do for our Creator. Peace, Love, and Light be yours.
Sincerely,
(—–Ben——)
This man is now a Christian brother of mine. I think we may have exchanged one or two more emails that day, but I have not heard from him since. What a powerful testimony it was for me, to see God work in and through this odd experience, over 30 years’ time. It was a privilege to see afresh, freedom in Christ realized. The weight of shame from over 30 years of remembering but not confessing and reconciling with us, had marked his life however. I have had my own weight of shame lifted. It was a joy to see him step out in obedience to apologize, and be reconciled and freed. Our God is a reconciling God. So, in this new season of Lent, I ask myself once again, and encourage any of you reading this story… does this story bring to mind a broken relationship in your own life? Perhaps you might make a step forward toward reconciliation, for the first time in thirty years with a long lost friend, or maybe a relative, or even God Himself? In my experience, holding back forgiveness can be equally binding. This story is my own reminder and encouragement today to offer forgiveness or confess sin, asking for God’s or another’s forgiveness (Matt. 5:23-24). I pray the powerful grace of God will meet and enable us to courageously make those old checkbook connections to see the chains fall off and the accounts reconciled.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Sincerely,
Anne
Blog Archive - Original Post March 2015