My lesson

I want to tell you a lesson I learned, the hard way, about prayer, and perhaps faith as well.  Earlier today, I was humbled. 

The story starts with a little girl and lip gloss.  This morning, Melanie passed off another book, and at school, when she passes something off, she gets to pick a prize out of the box.  Melanie picked lip gloss.

Around 5:30 tonight, while she was getting ready to go to the temple to see the Easter Pageant for the first time, Melanie misplaced her lip gloss.  It seems she wanted her lip gloss on because she needed "to be beautiful and perfect for the temple, because it's Heavenly Father's House"  and without it… well to say that she had a melt down would be an understatement.  I have never seen her so upset over loosing something.  I helped her look in the bathroom (which is where she thought she had it lost), and she was certain someone flushed it down the potty.  Then, I told her we needed to say a prayer and Heavenly Father could help us.  I have to admit, in the back of my mind I was really worried that it wouldn't work. I definitely lacked faith.  I told her before and after the prayer, that Heavenly Father would help us find it, but it might not be right away.

She said her prayer, pleading for Him to find her lip gloss.  The prayer calmed her down, considerably.   Just minute later, while rinsing off a dish, I looked over, and ta da! There it was!   I found it in the kitchen, not even looking.

okay, skip to a few hours later... I took Melanie and Noelle to the Easter Pageant with me, leaving Oliver home with Caleb Herbst to watch him.  The Pageant was beautiful.  My girls loved it.  I felt the spirit, and I know they did too.  Then I walk us back to the car… and now it's my keys, it's dark out, and I have no idea where they would be.  I started by looking in my backpack and the stroller.  I looked and looked. Every pocket! Nothing!

We walked back, and searched the floor by where I thought I had sat. Nothing!

I had a few people helping, but we didn't have any luck.  Then a missionary lady asked me if I had prayed. I had, of course, in my head, over and over... but I knelt and prayed. It calmed me down.  We walked to the visitor’s center to ask the lost and found. Not there.  We walked back to our car to see if they had been dropped by the car. Nope.

At this point, I was thinking up Plan B: My rescue plan.  I called the Herbst family and asked if they could save me, which they were so wonderful to jump to it.

We were going to wait in the parking lot until the rescue team arrived, however, a man in a jeep stopped, offered us snacks and convinced us that it wasn't safe to be there alone.  He was right, I knew it the moment he said it.

Melanie needed to use the bathroom, anyhow, and the port-a-potty they had in the parking lot was very questionable (it was on a little trailer, sitting on an angle), so I decided to go back to the temple again.  In the temple visitor’s center parking lot, they had trailer bathrooms that were a lot more inviting.  It required walking through the entire pageant seating.  We were doing just that (I was pushing Noelle in the stroller and carrying Melanie on my back), when I saw a security person with a flashlight searching the ground for garbage. I asked him if he was planning on searching the entire place, and if so where he would put keys if he found them.  He decided to help us. I told him the area and that I would come back as soon as I took my daughter to the bathroom.

At this point, I was saying more prayers in my head.  I was praying that we would find out keys, that we would be safe, and that Melanie would make it to the bathroom without hurting herself for holding it now for almost an hour.

She made it to the bathroom!  Then I met up with the security people (there were 2 at this point). I started looking at the stage and realized that we were a section further over than I remembered.  I had been searching one section of chairs over.  I moved us over a section, and started searching.  It still looked like we weren’t going to find them.  I think the guard was about to give up, when he moved his flashlight, and where I was looking (3 rows in front of where he was looking) there they were, laying on the floor.

They were sitting there, in a big grass mound. I only saw them just a little bit. It was a black spot in the green that the guard had in-avertedly lit up.

So, my lesson? The truth is, I didn't have the faith when it was my daughter's lip gloss. Apparently I needed to see her pleading to realize what faith should look like.

Believe me, if I didn't have my girls there to force me to keep my cool, I would have seriously lost it.  In a weird way, I'm grateful that they were with me.  It forced me to be calm.   I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father, who kept me and my family safe, who put people in my path tonight that were able to guide me, who helped me find my keys so that we could return home to my son, and who gave me such good friends that could be a reliable plan B.  (Because The Herbst Family were ready to save us, and I can't express my thanks enough).