2005. Driving from one job to another, I stopped at a few stores to kill some time. I looked at shoes in TJMaxx, browsed around Old Navy, and hit a shoe store. I went back to the car and went to get the keys and... nothing. After about 15 frantic minutes of talking to store clerks and retracing my steps I found them, inside a shoebox in a big stack. I had set them down when I tried the shoes on.
2004. Living in Uganda. I got home from an excursion to the carpenter to find out my keys were missing. Again, I had to retrace my steps, but this time I had to call my friend with a Land Rover to drive me the 3 miles to the carpenter's, who hadn't seen them. I felt all defeated, and as I was getting back into the vehicle looked down and there they were. On the ground next to the car. I guess we parked in the same place.
2012. Hendrik, Dirk's mom, and I were traveling to visit her family in Michigan. Mary drove, and when we got back to our house I could not for the life of me find the keys. I used a spare to get in, and she headed home. I dumped out my purse, nothing. Checked all our pockets, nothing. Finally when I was getting ready to call the sub sandwich place in Michigan, Mary called and told me she had found them in her purse!
2010. This time was really a doozy. My school keys went AWOL for a month. It was Christmas break when I lost them, so I didn't even know they were gone for a week. I looked everywhere, turned the apartment upside down, and suspected students of stealing them. When school started up I had to ask the janitor to let me into the classroom every day. After a couple of weeks I finally decided on the way home from work that the next day I would confess to the principal and pay whatever fine I needed to. As I stepped out of the car and passed our front lawn, I saw my keys just laying there in the grass. Turns out the day I dropped them it snowed, and we hadn't seen the ground in a month. But there they were, not even rusted.
For a while there it was happening so often I figured God was trying to get my attention. And he did, because each time when I realized they were gone and that familiar helpless dread settled in my stomach, I would pray. And sooner or later the keys showed up (or came back, if you subscribe to the wormhole theory). So the only conclusion I could make was that God allowed me to lose my keys to show me that he loves me. Something so small in the grand scheme, but he would even listen to my little prayers about lost keys. He has answered those prayers over and over and let me experience the relief and euphoria of actually finding them.
You've probably guessed why keys are on my mind. Yep, I am looking for my keys. It's like a classic mystery story-- I used my keys to drive home and get in the house on Thursday, and then they disappeared. No footprints in the snow, no other clues. We have looked everywhere in the house, and I'm about to empty each room out one by one to continue the search. What I hate the most is the feeling that I'm going crazy. I'm hoping and praying that we find them, and maybe this time there will be some evidence that God really does use wormholes to disappear my keys and get my attention. Here I am, Lord! I'm listening! :)