I cherish these times when I feel the Spirit and can feel my testimony growing, when most of the time I tend to feel lazy, overwhelmed by every day tasks, and outside of the Lord's watchful eye. Here is a very lengthy account of a testimony-building experience. I'm writing it down because I want to remember.
Spiff lost his wallet this week.
He noticed it was missing just before we went to bed. He started to retrace his steps and look in all of the obvious places. When he couldn't find it easily, he involved me, and we initiated a search of our house and our memories of the evening, which went like this:
Spiff got a car wash on his way home from work, parked the car in the driveway, then we all hung out for the remainder of the evening. He read to Gunner on the couch while I took Hobbes for a walk. We ate dinner. We put the kids to bed. He studied. End of story. Not a lot happened, and we couldn't fathom how the wallet could have gone too far.
My reaction to these situations is to clean. I began to pick up the mess I had been ignoring, searching while I cleaned and organized. We both looked in the car several times. We looked on the couch. We looked in, under and around the couch. We looked in coat pockets. We had the thought that perhaps our mischievous toddler walked off with it and hid it, so we searched the toy room. We entertained the idea that it had been stolen out of the car while it was parked outside the house. We checked the bank account. No activity. We sighed relief and hoped it wasn't true. How could it have just disappeared?
It wasn't turning up, but knowing we both had a long day ahead of us, we gave up and went to bed. We woke early, Spiff went to work, and I continued to search. I was certain the wallet had fallen into some laundry, so I folded some laundry. No luck. I went through the dirty laundry baskets, certain it was placed there by accident. Still no luck. I started searching through drawers. I looked in every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen. I searched the kids room. I searched the garbage.
Every nook and cranny in the house.
No wallet.
At that point, I panicked. The contents of our wallets are so important, so personal, so all-encompassing. So debilitating if missing. What does one do without it? What if it really had been stolen out of the car, which was on our driveway, in our very safe and quiet neighborhood?! I called the bank to cancel his cards.
I remembered countless stories of people who had lost important items, who humbled themselves, who got down on their knees and prayed for help finding this or that. Every story had a happy ending. They prayed, they opened their eyes, then miraculously found their treasure. Easy peasey.
So I prayed. And I prayed again. And again.
I often feel like my prayers are not answered. I often feel as if I am not significant enough for God's attention. I guess I am a skeptic at heart. I am a faithful person, but I know I am not even close to perfect in action or attitude. It makes sense to me that Heavenly Father would rather answer some other, more faithful person's prayer.
But I prayed.
Spiff got home from work early, and we continued to search with no luck. We systematically searched everywhere we could think of. Why wasn't my prayer being answered? I hadn't looked up and miraculously seen the wallet shimmering in the sunlight on top of the dresser where we happened to forget to look.
Spiff decided to give up. We were on our way out the door to go to the DMV to replace his driver's license.
The thought kept occurring to me, "Keep looking. Keep looking keep looking keep looking."
Okay, we'll keep looking. But where?!
Spiff made one last trip to search the car. (How many times had we looked in the car? At least ten already.)
And he found the wallet. It had fallen between the passenger seat and door.
I was so relieved that I cried. I also cried in thankfulness that the Lord does in fact hear me. He knows me, and He did answer my prayers. He didn't tell me where to look, but He did ask me not to give up.
To me, it's even more than an answer to this prayer. It is a lesson for my life. Keep looking. Keep Going. Stay vigilant in following God's commandments and standing up for the things that are right and good. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are here to be my ultimate support system in all trials. They want me to succeed and to be happy. They love me.
I am grateful. Today, my testimony is rock solid. I love the Gospel.
Now, I'm off to listen to conference. My heart is full.
1 comment:
Thank you for sharing! You are a beautiful writer, you have a beautiful heart, and a beautiful testimony.
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