This has been a tough week for a variety of reasons, some I intend to share with you once I get my thoughts together. Today was a bit of a roller coaster too.
Today was Trinity’s Women’s Luncheon, and Eleanor and I brought the kids, as we usually do (though they are not women 
. Partway through lunch, the kids couldn’t take it anymore, and we had to take them home. After dragging the boys out to the parking lot, I realized that I had a paycheck to deposit so I took it out of my wallet to endorse the check and give it to Eleanor. End of story?
Not quite. At some point, I realized that I had misplaced my wallet – I figured it was in Eleanor’s van. So I had no car and no wallet on me when one of our homeless friends showed up asking for help. Honestly, we’ve helped this guy in lots of ways, and it didn’t seem right to me to give him cash now so I thought, “How convenient that I left my wallet in the van because I can be completely honest with Jim (not his real name) and still not give him cash.” I was so sure that the wallet must be in the van that I stayed and did a bunch of work before I headed for home.
When I got home, I looked for the wallet in the van and it wasn’t there. Eleanor must have picked it up and put it inside, right? Nope. She hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t at the church either. For a moment, I considered Jim, but he’s not the kind of guy who would do that… though it’s hard to say what you are capable of when you need a place to live. We gave him food, but that’s not everything a person needs.
Well, that’s it. I must have dropped it in the parking lot and one of the many kids who cross our property after school must have picked it up. So I called and canceled all of my credit and bank cards. I stopped short of going to the DMV – that’s just adding insult to injury. Then I took a break.
Later, Eleanor decided to hang up some wind chimes. While she was up on the stepladder, she saw something she told me was “interesting.” My mind imagined termites or some structural problem with the house. But what she saw was what you see in this picture.
Now I had prayed about this. In fact, I was convinced that I would find the wallet, but it just wasn’t there, and I was out of options. I knew when I had seen it last, and not ten minutes later, I knew that I didn’t have it. There were only a few places I had been – the church office, the parking lot, and the church kitchen. So when it wasn’t in the van and it wasn’t in those places, I knew that it was gone.
Except that it wasn’t. It was stuck on the roof rack of the van. Eleanor had run errands and driven about 20 miles, but the wallet was still there. I must have put it on the roof to endorse my check. If Eleanor hadn’t happened to hang up those wind chimes, I would probably not have found it before it fell off or someone else noticed it.
So my prayer was answered but not in any way that I could have imagined.
That’s been how many things in my life have been lately. Not going as planned, but covered by God’s provision and grace nevertheless.
WOWWY!