Lost and Found

Last week, we began to file a “stolen vehicle report” on our Civic Hybrid. Thankfully, it was found, appeared untouched, and parked a block+ away from where I had parked it. Could I have not only misremembered parking it – when I had worked so hard to squeeze it into its spot – but also the extra distance I would have had to have walked? According to the officer (and since then, many of our friends), Honda vehicles are notorious for having keys work in same-model Hondas. So someone with a key to a Civic could look at ours and think, “Hmmm . . . that’s one’s a hybrid. Maybe I should see if I can drive off with it . . . (!)”

We asked friends to pray and some of them were actually praying that if someone did steal it, their conscience would get the better of them and they’d return it. Whatever actually happened is a mystery, but the experience represents for us both how fleeting everything is and also how much we feel blessed by God. How very true Jesus’s parables are on the joy we experience when we find what we’ve lost! Coupled with the remarkable story by which God blessed us with a hybrid (something we wanted, but gave up on seeking due to sticker-shock), we now feel that our vehicle is a double-blessing from God.

This story also reminds me of our marriage’s greatest “lost and found” story. At the very moment that our marriage was enduring its greatest test, both Chris and I lost our wedding rings. Literally, within a week and a half of each other, we both lost them and that was during the same two most challenging weeks of our marriage. Coincidence? I don’t think so. People who say I “over-spiritualize” need to look at “statistical significance” of incidents that are too much for “coincidence.” Anyway, off my little soap box and back to the story: we rebuffed our vow to never put anything on a credit card we couldn’t pay in at least three months and went shopping for new wedding rings. We found one beautifully symbolic for me: the desired circular ¼ carat in the middle, but then to the left of it, four very little diamonds “following” it. So I tell people, the carat is Jesus, followed by Chris, me, Andrew & Melanie. The kids, of course, love this story and show people theirs: “This one’s me!”

We never found Chris’s old ring, but six weeks later, mine turned up, buried under some papers in a drawer in the office. Ahhh, I think I know what happened. The ring was slightly small for me, so I would take it off to type at the computer. Little Melanie (then a toddler) probably found it and stuck it in the drawer. The story gets better before then, though. About a week and a half after we ordered the ring, a check came in the mail for me from a very old employer who had closed business. I had had some dividends with them, so the employer calculated what they were worth and sent a check to me for the exact amount of my wedding ring! What a surprise! Coincidence? Again, I don’t think so . . . ! The check didn’t cover the sales tax, though, so I always chuckle when I tell this story that “God doesn’t pay taxes!”

The best part of the story, of course, is that when my ring arrived, Chris proposed to me all over again! That happened to be a moment when we needed that romance, so we both think of what Joseph told his brothers when they were reunited, “What the enemy planned for evil, God turned around for good!” :-) Thank you, Lord!!