The Engagement Ring

I was blessed to inherit my grandmother’s wedding ring set. The antique platinum set was not only much more than I could have afforded to buy at the time, it was the perfect style for Colleen as well. One problem, though. The rings were in Oklahoma and I was in Israel, and I needed to get them in order to take them to Czech Republic where Colleen was living at that time.

I planned to ask her to marry me on my upcoming visit to Czech Republic and had to figure out a way to get the rings. I could have had them mailed to me in Jerusalem, but the taxes would have been crazy expensive. In God’s providence, Meno, my Israeli ministry partner had been scheduled to speak at a church within 5 minutes of my parent’s house outside of Oklahoma City. Now, I had a plan.

I asked Meno to bring the rings back to Israel, and he was happy to do so. He arrived early in the afternoon on Friday, and called to say that he had arrived safely and that he would bring them to church on the next day.

Bill and I were visiting Florence Wellborne, an elderly lady from west Texas who lived fairly close to Meno’s house, so I told Meno we would hop on over and get the rings. Meno insisted that I didn’t need to come all the way over to his house because he would bring them to me the next day. Again, we were only 10 minutes away, so I said, “we’ll come on over and get them.” Back and forth we haggled until he finally relented: “Okay, but you need to come quickly because we are going out to eat.”

Bill and I hustled over to Meno’s and retrieved the rings. I was really happy with the job a jeweler friend had done refurbishing them. But I was more happy to have them in hand … that made my upcoming engagement seem more real.

Later that evening, I received a call from Meno. He got straight to the point: “Craig, it’s a good thing you came and got your rings because our house was robbed while we were gone.” I snickered and said, “Come on, Meno, I don’t believe that.” He insisted they had, in fact, been burgled. I continued to refute his attempt to fool me. But after a minute of back and forth, he finally said, “Craig, I’m not kidding. We went out to eat, and when we came back, as Anat opened the door, someone inside pushed it shut. By the time we could get the door open, he had gone out the back, jumped off the balcony, and all we could see was a man running down the hill.” “Come on, Meno,” I pushed back, but not as strongly as before because this was starting to sound more plausible. “I’m not kidding, I had $700 from my trip on the dresser. He took that and all of Anat’s jewelry. I’m so glad you came to get your ring, or it would be gone, too,” he said.

I was immediately sick at my stomach, and the excitement of having my rings in hand, was soured by the fact that Anat’s jewelry had been taken, and that my rings could have been gone, too. I appreciate that neither Meno nor Anat made me feel guilty for still having my rings. In fact, they seemed both relieved that it was only their stuff that was stolen and not mine AND genuinely happy for me.