“What is her long term plan for survival?”
I want you to ask yourself this: how can a person even fathom a long term plan for survival IF her children haven’t eaten. Most people will deal with the immediate emergency at hand and then plan for the long term. I’m not saying at all that stealing is good. What I am saying is that in life... there are those people who need help. If I had been at this store and realized her kids were hungry, I would have purchased the groceries for her. Children are innocent. People get themselves into dire straits.. sometimes by their own actions and sometimes by bad luck/actions of others. Yes.. the kids in foster care would/could have been awful. Hopefully, she gets help and can get her life on track so she can buy her own food. The LEO obviously saw more than black and white and used his legal discretion.
I completely see where you are coming from, AP. We just differ in how our eyes see it. You want her to commit to a long term goal of success but want her punished for her actions. I think to myself, “There but for the Grace of God goes I”.
I want her to learn that stealing is wrong and dangerous. She didn’t have to steal. She could have asked for help. Risking your children being put in foster care is a very bad strategy but it worked perfectly this time.
“Hopefully, she gets help and can get her life on track so she can buy her own food.”
Who is going to support her if she decides that avenue is too much trouble? Who is going to pay her rent? Who is going to buy clothes for her kids? Are we going to let her kids starve if she decides she doesn’t want to work?
Amen. I remember a time when I was behind a woman with little kids at the grocery store. She didn’t have much money, and NO she wasn’t using food stamps. She didn’t have enough money for milk, so she was going to put it back. And, NO there weren’t junk food items in her cart either. I paid for her milk. Yes, but for the grace of God, there goes I.
Good for you! People who’ve never been in dire straights don’t understand. You can have all kinds of plans but it slips up on you. For all we know this woman “just knew in her heart” that things were going to turn around.
Years ago my wife’s in-laws kidnapped her daughter. The cops wouldn’t do a damned thing about it because the kid had been taken across the state line. My wife was 17 and didn’t know about the FBI and the cops didn’t tell her. So she went looking. She spent a year living out of a tent and hitchhiking. She got food money by doing odd jobs. On Christmas day she picked up trash from a convenience store parking lot for $5.00. She knows about needing help. That’s why every year we try to give some toys away. We let God “tell” us where to take them.
By the way, she found her daughter and got her back.