Dear Punk kid who stole my son's Yu-Gi-Oh Cards,

Today's guest post is courtesy of  the lovely & talented Kathy Richards. She (aka katdish) is not a writer, but she plays one on the internet. You can find her most days at her website http://katdish.net or giving unsolicited advice on twitter at http://twitter.com/katdish. She also designed and manages what she thinks is just about the best author website on the internet, http://billycoffey.com. She's also a ragamuffin, wife, mom, painter and church planter. She's been told she is mildly sarcastic.

You and I both know what you did. You told me everything I needed to know when you avoided eye contact with me. My son is a very trusting kid. Because you guys were hanging out and having fun at the comic store, he naively assumed that he could leave his deck on the table while he left for a few minutes. The emptying of the pockets and the backpack was fairly impressive, but you and I know that you stashed it where it would not be found. I know you think my son is some rich kid from the suburbs, but as I type this, he is doing extra chores to pay for the eight-dollar card that he had in his possession a total of 10 minutes.

When you took that card from him, you took away something else. You see, my son (much like his mom) is a bit of a square peg that never totally fits into the round holes carved out at school. When he goes to those tournaments, he is completely free to be himself and relax with other kids who are also square pegs. He will still enjoy going to these tournaments, but now that's one more place he will have to have his guard up. You taught him a valuable lesson that only experience can teach, but still...

I want you to know something else. We went out to dinner tonight. My husband usually says the prayer for the family, but tonight my son asked if he could pray. Guess who he prayed for? That's right...he prayed for you -- that God would forgive you as he has forgiven you. Do you know what I'm going to pray for tonight? I'm going to pray that every time you steal another kid's cards, you get caught. I want you to get caught stealing in a small way so that you stop while you're ahead. It's a much bigger deal when you move on to bigger things like old ladies' purses and cars. The authorities frown on those things and you might even wind up spending some time in jail, and how suck would that be?

Even though my son is convinced that you took his card, he will still be your friend and he will continue to pray for you. He really gets the "love the sinner but not the sin" concept. But don't be surprised if he wants to talk to you about Jesus. You might want to listen.