Thankful Thursday

Monday night our BSF class resumed.  We had just received about eight inches of snow Sunday into Monday and it was really cold; –7 overnight and a high of 15 on Monday.   When we arrived at the church the admin team and I opened all the doors and began setting up for the night.  Just before they left, two of the Pastors were putting out some ice melt and some cones to block an icy patch near the doors.  One of the bags was water softening pellets brought out by mistake and it had a hole in it…dropping white pellets down the hallway.  I began helping to pick them up and lifted the bag into a box, which was taken out to the dumpster. 

We went on about the night, greeting ladies and taking the attendance.  One of my privileges on Monday nights is to pray with our teaching leader before she gives the lecture.  The room we pray in was locked.  No problem, I went for my keys which normally hang on my arm on one of those coil bands.  The keys were not hanging from my arm.  Oh, I must have left them at the table where the attendance is being counted.  They were not there.  I quickly checked my bag thinking I must have dropped them in the pocket.  Nope.  Well, as Alethea and I went to pray, we asked the Lord to help me find my keys.  I really wasn’t too frantic, they had to be in one of those obvious places we were overlooking.  I back tracked my steps of the night.  Oh, maybe I left them on the table or maybe I left them in the bathroom.  After searching the contents of my bag and purse, I had a thought.  I think I left them on a table in a room.  They were not there, but my roll of tape was.  Well I bet the group leader picked them up and I will get them from her after lecture.  That did not pan out either.  I really had a peace about finding them until the end of the night approached and no keys were found anywhere.  We have a class treasurer and three ladies on the admin team a teaching leader and the substitute teaching leader, all searching  that church, the trash cans, the materials box…multiple times even.  But no keys! It was getting late and the only thing to do was to go home and in the morning call the church and let them know I lost their set of keys. 

I think I was a little disappointed because the Lord did not come through for me.  I was so sure He would.  I was so sure someone would walk up and say, “I found these keys” and that did not happen.  In talking about the night, the only thing we could think of is maybe, somehow they dropped into that box of pellets.  We left the building in the frigid temperature and got into our cars and circled up around the dumpster!  Jana, our class treasurer and  my long time friend was already poking around in the dumpster.  There was the box, kind of at an angle, like it would drop to the bottom of the dumpster.  There was the bag of pellets.  I moved it and could just make out the purple coil ring sticking up out of some loose pellets.  I could not believe it!  It must have caught on the bag when I lifted it into the box earlier that night and rolled off my arm without me noticing. Jana was yelling “Praise the Lord” and as the other cars pulled up I waved the keys and we had a hallelujah session!

Now you may be concluding that this Thursday I am thankful I found my keys.  And I am!!  But I am thankful too for the reminder that, really isn’t that just like the Lord?  To answer in a  way far outside my thinking.  I can tell you dumpster diving was not the answer I had in mind!  And I know we all would have been glad had somebody found my keys and handed them to me in the church, much earlier in the evening.  But  there would not have been that same level of rejoicing in the subzero temperatures of the parking lot! His timing is always perfect!  Our God is the God Who does “exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think!!”  (Eph. 3:20) So, thank You, Lord, for the keys and the reminder!