Lost and Found Love


Wearing my 25th Wedding Anniversary Earrings


It was a really sneaky, but loving effort on my husband Tom’s part. I was our business bookkeeper, keeping track of all our spending. So when Tom wanted to buy me a special diamond earring and necklace set for our 25th wedding anniversary, he used a buddy’s home address, and set up a payment plan with the jewelry store. 

I never knew until on our anniversary when I opened the gift. I put on those earrings and never took them off.


That was 17 years ago.


This week we went to our daughter’s home to help out. Our grandson was having oral surgery and our active, nearly-three year old granddaughter needed to be watched while our daughter worked from home in her upstairs make-shift office. Our son-in-law took our grandson to the surgery.


I confess, I went into active mode. I started by cleaning my nearly 16-year-old grandson’s room. He said he’d cleaned it some yesterday, but well, you know a teen boy's definition of clean.  I wanted him to be comfortable when he came home.







Then I played dolls, kitchen, zoo, make-believe princess, blocks, and hide and seek. I was upstairs, downstairs, and outside with my sweet active munchkin. 


At nap time, I discovered one of my earrings was gone. I’d always been so careful. I blamed it on my mask and those pesky ear straps. But I could have been more careful. In fact, earlier, I had felt that inner warning that it could be lost if I was careless. Now I had.


I told Tom. I knew I couldn’t find it. I’d literally been in every room in the big home, even the attic putting some things away. It was a small earring. 


Tom stood, and he immediately tried to retrace my steps—even down the road where I’d taken the garbage can for pick-up. No earring, of course.


Then, as we stood by the window, he prayed. “Father, please, in the name of Jesus, help me find the earring. It’s a small thing, but it means a lot to us.”


Then he went upstairs, and in our grandson’s room, he found the earring. That was astounding. A miracle? Well maybe not in the miracle category, but for two old married love birds, it was all the sign we needed that God understood what that earring meant to our hearts and he heard our prayers and said, “Yes”.





Popular posts from this blog

Dreaming the Dream

Image
Dreaming big dreams about the future is easy for kids. The only thing standing in the way is time.  Kid’s dreams are not about skills, or opportunities, or even practicality. Those things come much later.  My grandson hopes to be professional soccer player when he grows up. This week, a small piece of his dream came true when his Boys and Girls Club was invited to participate in pre-game activities with the Seattle Sounders Football Club.  He got to suit up in a real jersey and walk on the field with a real pro player. Imagine a young soccer player looking up to who he hopes to be one day. If you haven’t taken the time to talk to a child about their future dreams—you should.  They believe. As we get older we sometimes forget that dreams fuel our hopes—and that's something we all need. So, do you still dream? Or have you left those childhood thoughts behind?  S pending time with children will  inspire you to believe agai
Read more

Wild or Tame? Which One Are You?

Image
Finally! Research that explains why I act the way I do. Columbia University’s Motivational Science Center studied people’s activities and what brought them the most happiness. Even more telling were how those activities changed as they aged. Twenty-somethings tend to equate happiness with high-energy activities. Words like excited and ecstatic are usually attached to spontaneous things—even risky things—and living life full throttle.  Researchers labeled this Promotion Motivation —the urge to take chances, including career moves that may not work out. Happiness comes from happenings—the more happenings, the more happiness. By age forty, adults associate happiness with things running smoothly at work and home. It’s also about feeling secure in relationships. Keeping healthy matters more too. This behavior is called Prevention Motivation —and people are more concerned with preserving and maintaining the things they value. It appears that time ofte
Read more

The Quiet Dad

Image
After my granddaughter’s gymnastics, she’d always ask to go to the park next door—even in the winter. When you’re a high energy child, cold is relative. Our routine seemed to overlap with a dad and his son. I’d watch them as I watched my granddaughter go through her favorite activities—crossbar, swings, spinner, and the curly slide.  But the dad was not doing the same. He’d go hand-in-hand with his boy—pointing to trees, clouds, and the texture of the grass. I could see they were in a different place—one of sights, smells, and feels.   His son didn’t speak, so the father spoke into the silence around them. Since it was winter, the park was quiet—just the four of us—an energetic girl, and a boy who experienced the park in a way I never had.   We were at the same place, but in different worlds.    I saw a father’s love for his son expressed in quiet words of exploration. Never once did his son use the swing or try the crossbars. His world was spent touching tree bark and looking a
Read more