Lost?

This past week I have spent a lot of time working in the yard.
The weather has been glorious, birds all about and I have really enjoyed myself.
(I must admit though that I have been filled with joyful anticipation for hours spent reading in the yard rather than working on the yard)
The stream is up and running and Jenn helped me get the drip system put in for the plants growing around it.

The vegetables are planted complete with their own drip system.
We had a friend who has worked on our sprinklers in the past come and connect the drip system to the main system and get things adjusted so that we will be ready to have our patio poured this coming week.
I'm not sure if he was in a rush or what but he left a lot of things in need of gluing and adjusting. I ended up spending much of my Friday in the yard again.

That's when it happened.

Late Friday afternoon I discovered my wedding ring was missing.
I was horrified. I knew I had lost it in the last 90 minutes.
I had only been in the yard and at the sprinkler store.
I called the sprinkler store and they were closed.
I called back a second time and they answered.
I told them my dilemma and they said they would keep and eye out for it.
I drove down there anyway and looked around in the parking lot.
They saw me and let me look through the store.
No ring.
I went home and swept every sweepable surface and retraced my steps but I had literally been all over the yard in that time fussing with so many sprinklers.

I prayed. I felt a great reassuring calm
but looking outside the task seemed overwhelming.
Grass, rocks, stream, bushes, mulch... and my ring was most likely out there.
It was getting dark and I knew today's search had ended.
Mark came home from a bike ride and I burst into tears.
He put his arms around me and reassured me that it was just a ring.
It was replaceable.
I was comforted by his love.

Saturday I rented a metal detector to search the yard.
Christian used the metal detector first.
It beeped a lot going over the grass and we couldn't figure out why it was beeping, there was nothing there. Just to be safe I crawled on my hands and knees checking the blades of grass on a four foot wide path between the rocks and the garage.
No ring.
He went over the main path on the rocks while I searched (again) through some of the mulch around sprinklers we had been adjusting.
No ring.
I took over the metal detector and went over the grass that will soon be a patio.
No ring.
I searched through the rocks in a part of the stream I had been jumping over and still...
No ring.
I searched all the rock paths between the vegetable gardens.
No ring.
All this time I had been having a conversation with my Father in Heaven.
I knew that this was just an object.
My relationships were still in tact with or without it.
I did not need it to be happy.
BUT
It meant something to me.
It had the diamond Mark gave me when we got engaged.
It was a gift of love that was a representation of our relationship.
It seemed a part of me.
The more I looked the more I wondered if I would find it.
The yard was so big with so many hiding places for a small ring.
Steps here and there pushing it down in the rocks or into the soft earth in the grass
really.... what were the chances of finding it on my own?
very small

BUT
I knew that with divine help I might have a chance
Heavenly Father knew where it was He could help me find it.
but then again
maybe this was a lesson I needed to learn about the lack of importance of material things. I didn't need a diamond ring to feel secure in my relationships.
I just kept searching determined to keep looking till dark, forming plans of what to search next.

As these thoughts were going through my mind my eyes were a few inches ahead of the metal detector when I spotted it.
Jennifer was there with me. I think I gasped and dropped to the ground.
I think I blinked, I had imagined so many times what it would look like lying there in the grass or mulch or rocks... I was almost afraid to believe it.

But there it was.
I know many would say that it was luck or diligence on my part.
But I know better.
I know what I felt.
The ideas that formulated in my mind were not entirely my own.
Father in Heaven will not always give us what we want but
in this case he blessed me with my desire.
It took a lot of faith and work in my part but I felt His
guidance, direction and reassuring calm that whatever happened
it would be OK. I was in His hands.
He really does care about the little things.
He is mindful of the details for each of us.


(can you find the ring in the fourth picture?)