Most days I check my personal bank account balance. I like to visit the little money I have in there. Just check on it really. See how it’s doing. See if any pennies of interest may have come in. It’s great.
But this past Friday I looked and saw that my checking account balance was $0.00. My savings account was close to the same.
Panic started to set in.
I checked the charges and saw that they came out of Tampa, Florida.
I’m in Georgia. Not Florida.
A horrible sinking sensation started to settle in my stomach as the realization hit.
I had been robbed. The victim of electronic bank fraud.
Frantic phone calls started happening. Cancel the existing card. Talk to my bank in Maine. Figure out where the fax machine is here and wait for a fax to sign and send back. Emails. Conversations with multiple people in the office. Arrange for a new card to be mailed to me.
There was also the added element of this being the Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend. I knew that people would be leaving soon and wouldn’t be seen again until Tuesday.
However, my little credit union in Brunswick, Maine was wonderful and had the money reimbursed to my account by that afternoon. My account went from negative red to positive green in a matter of six hours. Oddly though, this is the point when I started to fall apart.
The relief that I would eventually regain access to my funds, combined with the adrenaline that I had been running on collided; and I broke down and cried.
I felt violated. Helpless. Vulnerable. Taken advantage of. Targeted. Angry. Powerless. Scared.
It took about five days to sort out everything financially.
That’s nothing compared to some people who have their lives turned upside down by fraud.
So why am I still so shaken up?
Why do I compulsively check my balance all throughout the day to make sure it hasn’t changed again?
Why do I still feel unsafe?
There use to be an accepted assurance in my mind that something like this wouldn’t happen to me…but it did.
I thought I was reasonably protected…but I wasn’t.
Trust had been broken and a significant amount of control taken away, leaving me scared and shaken.
“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” -Luke 12:24
God provides even for the birds. So why do I let myself get overwhelmed when life throws a punch? This week was difficult, but it was also humbling. The resolution went as smoothly as it possibly could. I wouldn’t have gone hungry. I have a roof over my head. I never really had anything to worry about. God even reassured me several times this week about safety. He holds everything in His hands, that includes me too.
Be still beloved. You are safely held.
