Lessons learned from my lost keys

This morning I woke up and got Gabe out the door for school.  I had told a friend that I'd go to the gym with her and we'd do a spinning class (neither of us fans of spin….) and then a barbell strength class we love.  I was kind of dreading the spin class for a couple of reasons - #1 my hiney gets sore from that class (even with padded bike shorts).  #2  I've been fighting an infection the last several days and still feel sluggish from it.

 

So as I was heading out the door to the gym I sent a text out that said something like, "I'm doing both a spin class and a weight lifting class.  I might need some divine intervention to get through."  Moments later I had the water bottles refilled, my gym card in my hand and had a snack for Hunter for the ride to the gym.  Went to grab my keys…..NO KEYS!

 I searched.  I searched some more.  I tore apart my car.  I tore apart my purse, my church bag, my "junk basket" in the kitchen (we don't have room for a necessary "junk drawer" in our kitchen, so sadly I have to make due with a basket….not ideal, but it works).  I went through clothes, my washing machine, dryer, cabinets, hamper.  I went through the garbage cans.  Let's just say that last night we had corn-on the cob with dinner and I had to dig UNDER that!  I looked under beds, couches, in the bathroom.  For heaven sakes – I even looked in the freezer and fridge. (Do you ever have moments where you get distracted and leave things in the wrong places?)

At one point I actually got scared.  I had a vague memory of putting my keys on an accessible hook.  I got thinking – "What if someone somehow broke into our house and took my keys?  Then they'd have access to everything!"  That thought got me freaking out about the situation even more.  At this point I tried to calm down for a second and sat down at my computer to see if I could distract myself for a second.  My Facebook status update:  "Lost keys. This is making me so not-happy." I got a couple of comments from friends including one that reminded me to pray and have faith. 

Pray and have faith….Ok I thought – I'll do that after I look a couple more places…..(Faith without works is dead – right?) So I went about the house tearing things up hoping to find my keys and getting myself even MORE worked up over the idea of someone breaking in my house and stealing my keys. I had another little reminder to pray from a text my mom sent me.  Ok, ok, I'll pray.

Lesson learned:  Pray FIRST.  So often I think that we get caught up in life.  We know that prayer works, we know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers.  But sometimes I think we leave prayer as a last resort.  Kind of like I was doing – I thought I'd keep trying myself and THEN I'd pray for help if I couldn't find them myself.

As I was finishing my prayer I had a series of thoughts come to me.  One of them was the idea that there was no possible way that someone stole my keys.  Not only did that sound ridiculous and paranoid, but our dogs would have barked at them, the alarm on the doors would have beeped and we'd known someone was in the house.  The thought kept going through my mind, "No, no one took your keys, your dogs wouldn't have been quite through that."

Then I went to search for my keys some more.  I wasn't feeling led to any particular area.  I didn't have a thought in my mind of where they could be.  I kept searching, but my searching wasn't quite as frantic or worried as it had been before.  I had a feeling things would be alright.

Lesson learned:  The Lord answers our prayers – sometimes with peace, sometimes with reassurance.  Our prayers aren't always answered with something as immediate as keys falling from the sky and hitting us on the head – but the answers do come if you give yourself a chance to have peace and listen.

At that time I started kind of laughing about the things I had been finding.  I found where all the disappearing pens and pencils have been, Hunter's new Anakin Skywalker toy, some misc Lego pieces, a CTR ring, I found a bunch of my barrettes I never can seem to round up and $.29.  I found a lot of useless stuff, lots of dust-bunnies and dog hair.  And then I found one of Gabe's shoes.  We'd been looking all over earlier in the morning for the shoe and I found it!  Score!!!

Lesson learned:  Sometimes we think we know what we're supposed to be searching for (in this instance – my keys), but we find something else (in this instance – Gabe's shoe).  How often do we pray and pray for something in particular and feel frustrated that we're not getting it, all the meanwhile the Lord is giving us something so much greater.  I think at times Heavenly Father thinks, "Oh my child, I have so much more I want to bless you with.  So much more than this small thing you're asking for – just wait and you'll see."

After 2 hours and 23 minutes I got a text from Cory "Found them" and quickly a phone call.  He'd found the keys!!!  He'd been in a meeting as I had been searching for the keys and had tried to reassure me via text when he could, but he had no idea where they could be either.  But as the meeting ended he went back to his van and searched around.  Low and behold there they were – in his gym bag, under his clothes.  We think he might have stacked stuff on top of the keys, scooped them up and dumped it all in his bag – including my keys.  WHEW!

Then I looked at the clock – I had completely missed both of the classes at the gym this morning – bummer.  I thought about how I'd joked about needing "divine intervention" to get through the classes.  Maybe what I ended up with was "divine intervention" to get me out of going to the classes.  J