When most people describe their honeymoon, they typically want to use words like unforgettable, unique, breathtaking. Our honeymoon was those things, but not necessarily for the reasons we had planned. You see when you decided to break into our rental car and take our things, you created a memory that we’ll probably never forget. We may never know who you are, and it’s taken awhile to actually write this, but we forgive you.

I imagine that things in your life weren’t going exactly the way that you would have planned. I understand that, it’s a feeling that I have from time to time. You probably weren’t thinking about us in a manner that we probably weren’t thinking about you before this event occurred. I’m sorry we didn’t have better stuff for you to take. You clearly needed it more than we did, but all we had to offer was some clothes in the middle of summer. Hopefully some good came of it for you. 

I don’t expect that you’ll ever read this and since we don’t know who you are we can’t really find you. However, if you do read this, I want you to understand that you’ve changed our lives. We were strangers in that town and that could be why our car was selected. Yet the feeling of helplessness and terror that we experienced is something we hope no visitor of ours ever needs to experience. I’m sure you’ve experienced things far worse in your life for you to be able to do this and again for that I’m sorry.

Thanks to you my wife and I have learned quite a few things and for that we have to thank you. We’ve learned what it’s like to have the unexpected occur and how we deal in the midst of chaos, fear, and the unknown. We learned just how deep our love for each other is in how we treated each other and how we managed to come out of this situation. We also learned to express our emotions and thoughts in a way that we’d never really reached before.

Potentially most importantly though we learned just how deep our faith and religion really are. After our initial reactions had worn off, before we even left your town we had already forgiven you. We had already prayed for patience and understanding as to what it is that God was doing in our lives. We also learned just how much we appreciated or didn’t appreciate certain blessings in our lives.

I’m not saying we’re perfect or that we don’t still have some bad days, we’re human after all. In fact I’ve hesitated for months about writing this because I didn’t want this to come across in the wrong tone. It’s not that we think what you did is right or that we weren’t hurt by all of this. Rather it’s that in spite of what happened we understand that you need our forgiveness more than we needed our stuff. If we would continue the process of hate and darkness that led to this event occurring for you, then we are not treating you with any love.

That is what I want you and anybody else who reads this to really understand. You deserve to be loved. You deserve respect and forgiveness and the strength, peace, and comfort that comes with both of those things. My forgiveness isn’t about me trying to look good in other people’s eyes. Forgiveness is about creating freedom. It’s about telling hate that it can’t win.