Sometimes We Have to Lose Something

I talk to Heavenly Father all the time. I know that’s not true, all the time, but it feels that way. He is important to me. However, I rarely get on my knees to formally pray.

This morning, I have been busy putting away Christmas decorations. I check my phone now and then because I’m waiting for two important calls but I don’t carry it with me.

I took a minute to check the mail because I expected my much anticipated Christmas present to arrive. I was so happy to see it in the mailbox. I got a fitbit!

I sat down on my couch and opened it up. I needed my phone to set it up. I look down at the table where I left my phone and am surprised. My phone isn’t there!? I’m not too worried. It’s not like I don’t lose things from time to time. I get up and start retracing my steps. And retracing. And retracing. I start to worry. I ask Heavenly Father, Hannah, anyone to help me. I do my best to listen. I go outside to where I got the ladder and boxes. No phone. I can’t call it because I don’t have anyone here to do that. I can’t call anyone to ask them because I don’t have a phone to call. I’m perplexed. I go over and over in my mind what I had done during the morning. It’s only been three hours! Where could it be?

Completely perplexed and a little frightened at the lack of my memory, I find myself on my knees. I find it ironic that the one thing that takes so much of my time has brought me to a rare moment of being on my knees in prayer. And I pray.

I begin to talk to Him. It feels nice. While I’m there, I go over a few decisions I’ve made and will need to make and ask if I’m on the right road. It feels good. Then, I explain my situation with the phone. And ask that He send someone to walk me to it. I tell him I have no doubt that if it’s His will, He can do this. In my heart, I thought maybe He wants me to be without it for a bit. I resign myself to His will. I finish and get up.

I listen. It’s always a still, small, gentle, kind voice of direction. I open the hall closet. No, that’s not it. Then as if blinders were taken away from my eyes and mind, I saw where it was. And I thought, NO WAY, did I really do that? Sure enough, I did!

I walked into the laundry room where all the Christmas boxes were sitting. I walked over to the gift wrapping box that I had organized earlier. I took the first two layers of items out. There sat my phone.

Sometimes we have to lose something to find what we really need and what we had been missing all along.

I’ll be on my knees more often.