Langreck: A prayer for the lost

As I’m sure most of you know, I am a person who has to always be on the go, or busy with one project or another, and rarely can sit still. However, sometimes my always on the go and checking one more thing off my list can cause problems.

The other day I was getting ready to go to my local gym and use the stationary bike since the walking paths I usually use are covered in snow and ice and I had slipped and fell down in the driveway the day before, but I couldn’t find my card that allows members to have 24/7 access.

With my finance’s help, I ransacked the drawer where the card is kept, along with the drawer beside it, but had no luck. I was starting to get upset because I was losing time and I had a lot of other work to do and I don’t like wasting time if I can help it.

I went out and checked my car, thinking that maybe I had it in my hand when I fell on the ice the day before while getting out of my car, but after moving all my seats back and forth at least twice and only finding a half-empty bottle of Gatorade and a handful of juice pouch wrappers my 5-year-old seemed to be hoarding in the back, I came up empty in the search for the gym card.

As I started to head back inside, I had a fleeting thought, remembering that when I fell on the ice something flew in the air and landed in the snow, but I wasn’t sure, so I pushed it to the back of my mind because a fresh dusting of snow had fallen overnight and, of course, the gym card just happened to be white.

I went back inside and mentioned it to my fiancé, and he didn’t think I did, but knew we would have no luck finding it due to it being white and a the fresh dusting of snow that fell during the night.

While he went to try and look in the snow for it, I sat down and dumped out the contents of my purse to see if maybe it had gotten lost among the receipts and coupons.

As I was beginning to put the contents of my pursue back together, my fiancé came from rechecking the car and the snow, but couldn’t find it. At this point, we had spent about 30 minutes looking for the card, but I really wanted to go to the gym, so I hated to give up on the search.

Then, suddenly, I remembered something my dad always said when you lose something and you’re frantically searching for it and panicking. He always told me that no matter how small I might think it is on God’s radar, if you are looking for something that is lost, take a few seconds to pray for God’s help.

So, I frantically threw up a prayer for help to God and went out to look in the snow for, like, the 15th time, only this time I thought about my car scraper and used the bristles of the snow brush to sweep away the dusting of snow — and then suddenly the bristles hit something hard. After 45 minutes of searching, I finally found my card frozen in the snow.

I was so relieved and thankful and glad that I remembered my dad’s advice. Before leaving, I said a prayer of thanks to God and headed to the gym.