Look up

By Kristen Banks

A few days ago I lost one of my favorite earrings. I typically don’t wear a lot of jewelry, but I wear these almost every day. They are little thin gold hoops about the size of a nickel bent into hearts. They go with almost every outfit, and are just the right size in my opinion.

I had recently noticed that one of the clasps was a little loose, but it still held, so I didn’t feel like it was time to retire them at this point. They aren’t worth a whole lot, so I didn’t want the extra expense of taking them to a jeweler. I decided to keep wearing them a little bit longer.

Then, a few days ago, in the middle of the day I randomly brushed my hair away from my ear and immediately knew that something was wrong. My ear lobe was just settin’ there on my head all cold and lonely like, and my little shiny gold plated heart hoop was nowhere to be found. I didn’t panic, but I was immediately sad and regretful. I knew I had covered a lot of ground at that point, because I had a lot of things going on that day. I knew it was going to be almost impossible to find, and I thought “I really don’t need this today.”

I looked around quickly and retraced all of the steps I had taken in the last hour or so. And that was all the time I had to spare for earring hunting at that point. I took the other earring out, and tucked it away safely in my wallet.

I immediately felt naked without my favored accessory staple. I would have to go on with my day, and possibly my life, without my favorite earrings. I know that probably sounds stupid, but anyone who has ever lost something that had meaning or that they just particularly liked best knows this can be super annoying and upsetting.

I normally would have obssesed a little over the whole situation, and took the house, car, and shop apart. But I didn’t this time. I made a conscious decision to not let it ruin my day. In the whole grand scheme of things, it was just an earring. I didn’t tell anyone, mostly because they might have thought it silly, but I said a little prayer instead.

You see, I have a tendency to be a little bit high strung, and I’m a kind of a worrier. OK, that’s a lie….not kind of, I’m a big-time worrier. So, instead of getting all worked up this time. I decided to stop, I prayed to ask the Lord to let me find my earring, and decided that even if he didn’t that I would be OK with that.

Then I left it at that, and went on about my day.

When I got home that night I looked in all the places that I hadn’t been able to while I was at work. But it was still nowhere to be found. Now I know some people don’t believe in prayer, and even if they do, they sure don’t think you ought to be troubling God with something so small and insignificant as an earring. Especially when it was your own stupid fault that it was lost at all, because you continued to wear it when the clasp was loose.

But, I’ve come to find that God cares about a lot of things. I think He cares about the small things just as much as the big ones. And I think He even cares about the things that are mistakes, and are our own stupid fault.

Now, the concept of prayer is not new for me. In fact, I’ve even prayed about many sewing-related things throughout the years. I’ve prayed about how to fix a quilt that I had no idea how to even begin to fix, because it was such a mess. I’ve prayed about a pair of favorite scissors that were lost, or please don’t let my machine break down again in the middle of this project. I’ve found prayer really comforting, and pretty effective if I do say so. This time was no exception.

I stumbled home from work this evening tired, and feeling discouraged, because I didn’t get a fraction of things done today that I felt like I needed to. I hadn’t even been home an hour when I heard whooping and hollering from the kitchen.

Now, my sister knows me well. She knows that even though I’m not making a big deal about it, I’d still love to have that earring back. So, she was very pleased that she got to be the one to retrieve it from being woven into the gold colored kitchen mat in front of the sink. Apparently it fell out while I was doing dishes in the morning before going to work that day, not the many dozens of other less desireable places it could have made home.

The fact that it was found is not the most amazing part of this story. The fact that I was able to skip days of worrying and fretting over it is. It makes me wonder what other worries I could let go of.

I’ve found the Lord to be ever faithful in my life, and a very present help in time of need. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and alone in your daily struggles, but when a prayer is answered and a problem solved, it feels good to think that we aren’t left alone in this world. No matter how small an insignificant our problems may seem, I believe He cares.

So, my advice this week is when you can’t find what you’re looking for, always look up first. You’re bound to find it there.

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