"Constant Vigilance!" ~ Mad-Eye Moody Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

This morning was a lesson for me in the evils of complacency. Sometime between when Jake came in from work last night at 11pm and I came back from jogging at 7am this morning, someone stole our bicycles right from off our little enclosed back porch.

It was both shocking and saddening for obvious reasons. Jake used his bike daily to get to work and school, and I used mine with the trailer to take Brendan to the library and so on, and now we were robbed of those opportunities. The thieves in question left behind the trailer and Caleb's bike and only took our adult ones. Mighty nice of them. No conscience whatsoever - knowing that they were stealing from a young, student family (we are in student housing after all).

I guess what got me the most was that just this last Saturday, we had all taken our bikes over to one of our favorite parks for a little outing while the weather was nice. Jake and I had sat on the grass while the boys played, and we talked about how things had been going so well lately - things falling into place - and yet how we were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It always does. There is just no way that the universe can align for very long before something going a rye. Funny and ironic enough, we'd also talked about how much we've enjoyed living in Eugene and how the news rarely has anything to say in the way of crime. Ha!

Now for my lesson in complacency, allow me to backtrack a bit. So, when we first got our bikes, we were totally psycho-California-style paranoid about locking them up. If we weren't home, we either locked them up or brought them into the house. Even if we were leaving to step out for a few minutes they were secure, and certainly every evening. But, then a night would pass when we'd get lazy and it was chilly outside. We'd put off locking them or just forget altogether. Locking up became a more and more sporadic thing. After all, they'd been safe before and are in our enclosed porch right next to our living room window. We live in the inner portion of the complex with far less traffic coming in and out, and we started to justify not worrying so much. And now this. We got what we deserved. I couldn't even be very upset about it - minus the feelings of loss and regret. I knew that we'd had it coming.

Then after the discovery and on my way to my Relief Society presidency meeting this morning, I had a bit of an epiphany. This is exactly the way that Satan works on us. This is the way that we get ourselves into trouble. We get lazy and complacent. Human nature is to go with what is easy, what is quick. We justify. If we miss a night of family prayer, what's another night? We're all doing OK. If we don't hold Family Home Evening every week, at least we do it once in awhile, right? It can get easier and easier for us to slack off if we are not constantly vigilant, constantly making the effort to stay on track. We are never safe enough. There will always be Satan waiting in the wings, "casing the joint" if you will, and waiting for us to leave ourselves unsecured for him to lead us away in the night before we ever know what hit us.

I know that I have learned a lesson here. Too bad it cost us two bikes. At least it won't cost us two souls.