When I was ten, we moved into a new home. Somebody tried to break in the first night we were there; apparently some jerk thought our stuff was there but we weren't yet. I never knew about it until years later; I guess our parents didn't want us to become anxious about it.

A few years after we moved in, our house *did* get broken into, while we slept. I don't remember how much was taken, but I do remember they stole our VCR. I suppose it was a good thing that they didn't wake any of the family up during the looting, or someone might have gotten hurt. God protected us.

The neighborhood we lived in used to be really bad. Once while we were on vacation, a neighbor girl broke in through an upstairs window and slept with her boyfriend on my sister's bed. (Again, that was something I didn't hear about until I was older!) And once my dad came home from work for lunch and actually caught a guy at our back door trying to break in. He had just broken the glass out of the door when my dad got there. Although it was obvious what the guy was up to, my dad asked him what he was doing, and the guy said something about being at the wrong house and took off. My dad called the police, gave them a description, and they caught the guy in another part of the neighborhood. YES! They do sometimes get the bad guys.

I relate all those stories just to say that I have some inkling of how you feel. I've never had to be the one who has to make everything all right again after something like that, and I hope I never do. I will pray for you.

Grishny