One Missing Paper

The freshest of stories…
and oh-so-wonderful
to see God’s hand 
up close and personal,
always at work in our lives…
Because although God never changes
and His promises are the same
yesterday, today and forever,
somehow we so easily forget that part.
But really, if He worked miracles 2,000 years ago…
Why is it we are so doggone forgetful 
that that same God
works miracles today?
It’s not a joke
nor is it ‘wishful thinking’
He is alive and well 
and
He most definitely still in the miracle-working-business
today!
And that’s why friends – 
we have to continually remember
and tell each other the stories of His faithfulness
and His very, very, very miraculous ways…
When we remember what He has done
 we are reminded He is more than game to 
do it again and again and again!
And so it is that this Memorial Box story 
comes hot-off-the-press…
as in from – yesterday!
*****
When I was in Africa a very important piece of 
paper arrived at our home.
It was one of the most important papers we have ever had
and
it was a paper we were celebrating.
It doesn’t matter what the paper was,
just suffice it to say, 
it was very, very, very important to our family 
and we were overjoyed that it had arrived.



I couldn’t wait to see the piece of paper when I got home.

Only trouble was that by the time I got home
it had disappeared. 
There had been some massive all out searches for it
before Liberty and I had even landed.
But to no avail.
Hmmm.

{Upside was that I didn’t get blamed 
for losing it.  hahahahha}

Where did that piece of paper go?
Of course, the problem with 
a missing piece of paper 
is that it could be anywhere.
It could have been accidentally put in a file

which could have inadvertently been 
filed in our filing cabinet…

and
we know how many files and files and files
large-adoptive-and-also-in-ministry families
 can have!



Or 

worse yet, 
it could have been accidentally
thrown out.

That thought made us feel sick.
So Daddy offered the kids a reward
and 
we turned it kind of into a game.
It was, 
shall we say, a
“Find-the-missing-paper-and-everyone-will-get-a-reward” 
kind of frustration fun.
And we all searched.
A true team effort.
High and low.
In this and through that.
Over and over.
Most places searched multiple times
by multiple people.
Short people as well as tall people. 
If you were a fly on our wall
you would have heard more than once,
“If I were a piece of paper I would hide….”
Of course we prayed together as a family several times…
In the meantime, quite some time ago 
the Lord began to speak 
to my heart about my prayers…
I know I’ve mentioned it before…
but do we pray 
believing?
I mean, really, truly, believing?
And friends, I knew that this paper had been 
from the Lord,
so we didn’t need to ask if it was His will to find it…
Of course it was His will…
He had provided it in the first place!
Hebrews 11:6 tells us,
Without faith it’s impossible to please God…”
That’s a quickly quoted 
and kind of a simple verse, 
but it bears much, much, much weight.
I mean think about…
we want to please God,
most of us want to please Him with our whole being.
But it says that 
if we don’t have faith 
we’re not pleasing Him.
Why is that?
Well Almighty God wants us to 
believe Him
and 
trust Him
and
hope in Him
and 
depend on Him
and 
know that when He says
He will do
something,
He means it!
Sooooo….
a few years ago I began to pray for things like this:
“Lord you know exactly where such-n-such is,
so would you please 
bring it to where we can find it easily,
no matter where it is at this moment.”
And then I pray,
“Please whisper to me where you put it.”
He has brought the most incredible things
to where we could find them easily,
but they are stories for another day!
Anyway,
I prayed with Dw that simple prayer,
“Lord you know where it is,
if it was thrown out, filed or in a landfill somewhere – 
please bring it from wherever it is 
and 
put it where we can find it.
Easily.
Without any effort.
Oh, and I want to be the one to find it.”
{giggle}
And I knew that I knew that I knew He was going to do it.
And I waited.
A few days passed –
He hadn’t whispered yet.
But I thanked and praised Him for bringing it to 
where it would be easily found.
Then yesterday morning I woke up 
and
immediately He whispered where to look.
I got up and casually remarked to Dw,
“I’m sure you’ve checked your briefcase.”
He answered,
“Like twenty times.”
I responded, “Yeah, I figured you had.”  
Nehemiah piped up…
“I look in Dad’s case too.” 

Without a word,
I nonchalantly and very quietly headed into Dw’s den
in search of his briefcase which had already been
checked many, many times by more than one person.

I unzipped the first small compartment
even though it would have been too small to hold the paper.

Nothing.

Then I unzipped the second bit-larger compartment.

Nothing.
Then I opened the regular part of the briefcase where
everyone keeps their larger papers.

I found one lone yellow legal pad and a brochure of some kind.
I moved the legal pad a bit and
I noticed one white piece of paper tucked inside
its pages.

I thought,
“That looks like a piece of copy paper.”

Lifting the yellow legal pad out
I quickly turned to the place where the
indeed a piece of copy paper was…

and



I gasped!

Right there before my eyes was the long-searched for paper!
Even though I was stinkin’ giddy, I mustered all
the casualness I could and walked out to the kitchen 
and didn’t say a word.
I just stood near Whitey where he could 
watch me holding the piece of paper.
I kept my face down, intently staring at it.
Glancing at what I was holding, 
he basically yelled,
“Where did you find that?”
“You won’t believe it.”
He questioned me,

“Come on!  Where?”

I started to giggle loudly and said,

“How many times did you search your briefcase?”
“NO WAY!  You did not!!
I searched there at least 20 times!”
He continued,
“I have goose bumps all over me!
I can’t believe it!”

I reminded him,
“We asked the Lord to put it where we could 
find it easily.  My best guess is that it was probably in a landfill
and He sent ministering angels to get it,
clean it up, iron it and then
put it in a place that had been searched many times
just to show His miraculous ways!”

Think about it, if we found it in a tucked away
file in our filing cabinet we would rejoice,
but to find it in a place that had been
searched many, many times?

Oh how He loves to do the miraculous!!!

So here’s the skinny friends….
God loves to answer our specific prayers.

He says He whispers secrets to those who fear Him.
{Psalm 25:14 – one of my most favorite verses}

And those who hope in Him, will not be disappointed!
{Isaiah 49:23 – Another favorite verse of mine!}

He longs for us to trust Him.
To believe His word.
To Hope in Him and Him alone.

He did exactly what we humbly and thankfully asked Him to do.
Why wouldn’t He?
He loves us all oh-so-much!
All praise and honor and glory to
our miracle working,
mountain moving,
awe inspiring,
gasp-giving God….
And to officially celebrate we had ice cream sundaes for dinner.

A copy of that sweet piece of paper will be added to
our Memorial Box.

How about you?
What are you trusting Him for?
What are you praying in faith believing for?
He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above
all we could think or ask!
Put your hope in Him.

7 thoughts on “One Missing Paper

  1. Oh….I love this! Such a testimony. You asked expecting to receIve as you stood on Gods promises! You kept praising God and waiting for His whisper expecting and believing you would. And the rest is a testimony, a story for the grands…to hear as the memorial box gets more and more full of Gods goodness! Love love this friend!

  2. Praying and believing God will supply Megan with a good paying job. Also she will pass algebra and that will get her graduated from college this spring!

  3. Oh Linny, I just love coming to your blog. It consistently encourages my heart by pointing me to Jesus, Mover of mountains, Creator of all that is beautiful, Developer of people, Designer of miracles, and Rescuer of our hearts. I went into the healthfood store the other day and happened to notice a tiny bag of mustard seeds in their display window. Even when my faith is as tiny as that seed, I get to come here and watch it expand and grow. As you share your stories, you help us exercise our own faith muscles and our own faith grows. You are a blessing when you are Jesus' hands and feet. I suspect He really loves your story telling.

  4. We are leaving next week to adopt our son. To fulfill a matching grant, we needed $2500 yesterday. So my prayer all day was please God, just $2500. I literally asked all day. Then, I received an email from our youth pastor saying someone left an envelope for our family at church. Well, it wasn't $2500, it was just over twice that! I faithfully prayed and He answered!

  5. Hi Linny, I've been enjoying dropping in here for a few months now and thought I'd share my own memorial box story inspired by this one, again hot off the press from yesterday…

    I re-became Christian 8 months ago while working in a hospital in Ghana, having turned away from the faith of my childhood for the last few years. Over that time I've really been struggling with some big questions, including where was God when I had some struggles growing up. Over the last year God has very obviously been at work, but I had this niggling question about my past that led me to doubt His intentions.

    I read your post on Monday and could certainly relate to the frustration of losing something important. On the previous Monday I lost my stethoscope – I'm sure it's not as important as your document, but as a trainee doctor, not having a stethoscope makes work very difficult!! Like you, I'd searched everywhere – all the wards I'd been on, the canteen, my house – multiple times. I prayed that God would help me find it. Reading your post I thought "yes I believe He can find it for me, but how do I know He wants to?" I thought "of course He'll help Linny find it, He obviously loves her, but me…?" For the next couple of days I continued looking and even put up a sign with my mobile number in case anyone found it (the stethoscope has my name on), but was beginning to lose hope as it had been over a week. (that's a cell phone for you non-British people :p)

    Yesterday I was feeling a bit insecure and prayed about those times as a child when I had felt abandoned by God. I asked Him to show me where He was then. In my mind's eye I pictured Him there with me, but was thinking "well I certainly wasn't aware of it, so I don't really see how that helps". Then, just as I was thinking this, I got a text from one of my friends – someone had given her my stethoscope! (It had wandered to a different ward) I can't help thinking this is God whispering "I do love you as much as that…"

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