Two months ago our neighbors' girl forgot her colorful belt at our house after a play date with Keetah. That evening I noticed Keetah playing with the belt and thought, "I better put it away so that I don't have to look for it later", but I was too lazy to get up from the couch and do it right away (I blame the pregnancy:). Really, how can a belt be lost in a rather small house anyway?
Well, a couple of days later I started looking for the belt as another play date was on approach and I wanted to give it back to the girl. Guess what, it vanished. I did an extensive cleaning of the whole house (and BTW, no, my house is not that messy!) five or six times, looked in every imaginable nook, interrogated Keetah numerous times, all to no avail. Meanwhile I was growing mad at Keetah (and letting her know about it very clearly), mad at myself for not lifting my butt from that couch, secretly suspecting Kevin of thoughtlessly misplacing it, and (ashamed to admit) getting a bit cranky at God.
In addition to the above mentioned turmoil, after two months of unsuccessful search the girl's dad finally made it very clear to me that the girl's mom really wants the belt back because it was part of a retired and very expensive American Girl outfit that she was very fond of. I went online and my jaw dropped at the price of the outfit coupled with the sad fact that it was sold out and the only way to buy it was at ebay for a DOUBLE price. Given the fact that my husband has been jobless for two months and we were struggling to pay bills you can imagine my level of frustration with the occasion.
After that last straw my crankiness at God turned into…well…personal offense, to say the least. I know He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Of course He knows where the belt is. He knows we have no money. He knows my life is difficult enough without this additional MEANINGLESS irritant. I am praying to Him every day and asking Him to help me find the belt, yet my prayers go unanswered. Does God really care about the small details of my life and my everyday frustrations? Why did He have to hide that belt from me? I did not have any answers to these questions that would be in God's favor.
We finally decided to compensate our neighbors for the lost belt with the American Girl gift card for the amount of the outfit when we would have enough money to buy it.
Last Monday I was getting the kids ready for preschool and had to take to school a registration form for Sebi. I decided to fold it and put it in a small pocket in Sebi's backpack. When I opened the pocket I gasped. Voila! The belt neatly folded into a roll was there! Keetah saw it and said, "Oh, I was just decorating Seba's backpack!". What a relief! I truly felt like the woman from one of Jesus's parables who found her lost coin. Without God's mercy and providence I would have never found it because it had never occurred to me to look in that tiny pocket in Seba's backpack, and I usually never use it anyway.
God does care about minute details of my life. But more than anything, He cares about my heart and my attitude toward Him. Yes, it is more than easy for Him to answer my prayers in a split second, yet He chooses to test me to show me what is really in my heart by sending "meaningless irritations" into my life. It is not a meaningless or a trivial thing in His eyes, for my tested faith is more precious than gold to Him (or my comfort!). Am I quick to doubt His goodness on every minor occasion? Am I quick to rebel at His providence and brand His ways with me as "meaningess" and "uncaring" because they are not according to my liking? Alas, it is so, which takes me back straight to Genesis 3. What would my heart say to God if it was not a lost belt, but a lost child, or a lost house, or a lost husband, or a lost health??? In the end I am grateful to God for "meaningless irritations" and for gently testing my weak faith with such minor trials, and for reminding me of His sovereign goodness and perfect plan for my life.
