Lost'n'Found

I didn't know how it would turn out. I was nervous, but confident. The Lord hasn't let me down before, so I lead the boys to the middle of the big grassy round-about and knelt down. 

We had lost the house key. I had it tied to my shoe while I ran along side the boys on their bikes to the park. But after an hour of underdogs, merry-go-round pushing, races to the drinking fountain, and a run home, we got to the front door only to realize we didn't have the key. 

"We're going on a detective adventure!" I declared, trying to minimize the gripes and groans I knew I would get when I told them we had to turn around and walk back. It worked semi-well and we "put on our best detective eyes" as we set to the task of scouring the mile long stretch to the park. We were about a block from the park and still empty handed when I told them I had a special way of finding things that were lost. And that's when I took two little boys with me to pray to Heavenly Father that we could find the lost house key.

It took some explaining before hand. First, that God and Heavenly Father were the same person, and that I call him "Heavenly Father" because he's the father of our spirit. GABBIN' chimed in, "Yeah, and he's EVEN the father of the first man who was actually a monkey right?" "Yep" "AAAAND the father of aliens. Right?" "Uh huh." Then he asked me which prayer I was going to say, and if when we opened our eyes the keys would just come "flying toward us by the Spirit!" Um, no.

We got to the park and did two sweeps over the areas we played in before I did the old lawn mower method of walking back and forth, making sure to cover every inch. It took about 10 minutes of this before I saw the shiny gold key in the grass. When I held it up Paddy exclaimed, "God helped us find the key!"

It was true. It was one of those totally elementary, but completely testimony building experiences. We promptly knelt and said a prayer of gratitude, and I was reminded once again that the Lord is there. And that he loves us.