While we were living in Kansas City, my son and I would
take advantage of going to the library every week. We would stack up on books
and movies. And every week we would return the old books and movies and switch
them for new ones. We enjoyed this routine very much. It was on one of these
regularly scheduled library trips, that the librarian noticed one of the DVD’s
was missing from its case. “Oh, I’m so sorry; I must have left it in the DVD
player!” The movie was not due back yet, so she handed me the case to take back
home and return it once we had the DVD. Not putting too much thought into it we
went on throughout the library finding new treasures for our week. In fact, I
didn’t think much about it until we were home and I checked the DVD player to
find it empty.
“Well, that’s not good.” I thought to myself but still not
completely worried. I began to look anywhere I might have absent "mindedly" set a
DVD, all the obvious places like the DVD player, beside the TV, on the mantel,
in my DVD cabinet. But I was coming up empty. This was so out of character for
me. I am a very routine person and my normal routine is to put a DVD straight
into its case. Then I got to thinking. What if I wasn’t the one who misplaced
the DVD. “Oh Uh” I said out loud as I looked at my very mischievous 3 year old.
“Did you take the DVD out of its case?”
The smile on his face and the look in his eyes gave him away. “I think I
did, I get it” He turned and ran away. “Well this should be interesting” I
thought. “Hopefully, it’s still in one piece.”
When several minutes had passed
and neither my son nor the DVD had returned, I went looking for them. And to no
surprise there he was sitting on the floor playing with a freshly dumped pile
of toys. “Where is the DVD?” I asked him. “I dunno” he replied without looking
up. “Go figure” I said to myself as I began searching his room. I searched
everywhere in his room and came up empty handed, so then I began to search the
house. Ya’ll I checked every drawer, every cabinet, under every bed, in the
closets, toy boxes, everywhere. And I continued to search for weeks. We were coming to the time when the DVD was due back at the library, I did not want to
pay any late fees and I didn’t want to have to buy that silly DVD, so I
continued to search but with no luck.
It was now the day
before we would be going to the library, and I was talking to my husband about
it. He began to help me search and I had a striking thought hit me that I had
not asked God to help me find the DVD. He knew exactly where it had been hidden and I had not thought to ask him to join this search party. So, I began
to pray. I asked God to help me find it. I also asked Him to forgive me for not
doing this in the first place.
I
remembered the verse about seek and ye shall find. Well ya’ll I had “seeked”,
and I had “seeked” for it everywhere. So, now I was clinging to the other part
of that verse, the promise part about "finding". My husband had just walked back
into the room where I was looking and my eyes drifted to his direction when all
of a sudden something shiny caught my eye. “What is that?” I wondered to myself. A silver shimmer in the heater vent which was mounted on the bottom of the wall .
I walked over to the wall and my husband followed me. “What is that?” I asked him as he
knelt down, put his fingers in the vent and pulled out a shiny DVD. We eagerly
checked the title and confirmed it was the missing DVD!!! Yes, in the heater
vent and yes, put there by my mischievous 3 year old. But ya’ll in that
moment I learned a valuable lesson and not about the hiding places a 3 year old
can come up with but on the love of God. In that moment, I was reminded that no
matter how small our request is; God cares. He cares for our concerns, He cares
for our problems, He cares for our heartbreak and He cares about what is
important to us. He cares and He cares deeply. He allowed a shiny missing DVD
to remind me of the amount of devotion and adoration He has for me. What is He
using in your life to show you His love and fondness? Sometimes He shows us in
the smallest ways, like a shiny DVD.
There is no request too
small, too unimportant, too big or too hard for God. He wants us to come to Him
for everything. Today, let’s go to Him first, not last, and let’s cast our
cares upon Him and leave those burdens down at His feet Let’s live righteously
in our prayer life and truly learn to trust Him with our hearts, hurts, burdens
and even our concerns.
I Peter 5:7 “Casting
all your cares upon Him for He careth for you.”
