Looking For the Lost Key(s)

I was stuck in a rut, and God brought me out of it with a case of beer.

That thought just makes me smile.

It wasn't my beer, and I didn't even get to drink any of it. And I'm still smiling despite those facts.

A middle-aged man was waiting in my line at the grocery store to buy it, when the younger customer in line ahead of him saw it on the belt and made a comment about it. A few jokes were exchanged, a laugh or two...and just like that, the two men were deep into a conversation that moved from alcohol consumption to work histories to job opportunities in record time (maybe because they were in the “express” lane? LOL). I rang up their orders, ran their credit card payments through and handed them their receipts without interjecting a word. So engrossed were they still in what they were saying that they walked out to the lobby, leaving the case of beer that started it all sitting on the belt at the end of the register! Hailed by the hollers of those nearby, the man retrieved his beer with a shake of his head and then returned to the conversation that continued for several more minutes. Finally there was a handshake, an exchange of phone numbers, and both men exited the store and went on about their business.

A few minutes later, the beer-buying man was back.

“I must've left my keys here,” he said to me. “I can't find them.”

I hadn't seen them and told him so, but I stopped scanning groceries for a minute as we both looked around the register and down on the floor where they might have dropped. I told him to check at the customer service desk in case they'd been turned in and he went off to do so. Minutes later her was back again, and by now he had a couple of customers interested in the situation and involved in the search. Shaking off their suggestions as to where he might have left them, he said, “I know I had them at the register, because I dropped them and made a comment about it when I picked them up. I was sure I put them in my pocket, but they're not there.” Since there was no sign of them anywhere in the store, he went back outside to look some more and ponder his options.

When he came up to me a third time, I wasn't expecting to hear good news. But he was smiling, and pointing to a large lump at the base of his pant-leg, just above his boot.

“I found my keys!” he beamed. Apparently a hole in the pocket of his flannel-lined jeans had allowed them to slide all the way down his pant leg inside the lining to the very bottom. While he was relieved to know where they were, he still needed to find a way to get to them. Was there a place where he could take off his pants and shake the keys back down the other way?! I directed him to the men's restroom, and after a LONG time he exited the store a final time, smiling big and waving his keys at me as he held them high over his head.

Maybe the story mattered to me only because when you scan groceries for a living, the real-life dramas of the people standing before you are much more interesting than the items coming in a steady stream down the belt. But in this case I think it was something more.

I hadn't written a word in months. At first it was the rush and crush of the holiday season that kept my hands busy and away from the computer keyboard for weeks at a time. Then the new year brought with it new hours at work that stole away my morning typing time and forced me to find a new time slot in my day in which to schedule it in. But even once I had adjusted to that, I realized that the problem wasn't so much “no time to write” as much as it was “nothing to say”. And that was an issue I couldn't seem to do anything about. Missing the stories that seemed to pop up so steadily around me with messages attached, I didn't want to believe the voice in my head that said that part of my life was over. Desperately I clung to an entry I'd made in a journal a few years ago: “I have a story to write. I just don't know what it is yet.”

What if the episode with the keys was to tell me that what I thought I'd lost was really still with me; I just needed to get to a place where I could shake it loose? Suddenly hope filled my heart...and whoosh! Just like that, the dam broke, the words flowed, and my writing garden was watered once more.

Maybe you have lost something infinitely more precious to you than a mere set of keys. It could be the health you took for granted... a love you treasured... your financial security, perhaps. Try as you might, you have been unable to get your life back on track in that regard. Fearing that what you had is lost to you forever, you are now on the verge of despair. Could it be that we are really all looking for the exact same thing? ...the key to moving God's hand, unlocking the door, and giving us the answers we seek? Maybe God wants you to know that what you are missing has been with you the whole time; it is just momentarily inaccessible. Give the situation some time and space and patiently wait for Him to place it in your waiting hands. It may take a while and there may still be a lot of work involved, but it will come.

God responds to our pleas for help with what we need instead... an outpouring of hope...and suddenly anything is possible...the answer is probable... and what we've seemingly lost is patiently waiting to be reclaimed.

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.”

(Isaiah 40:31 KJV)

Frozen Futures

Baby, it’s cold outside!

More than just the last line to a song I heard multiple times this past holiday season, those words describe a December hailed by the local news media as the third coldest/snowiest on record for our area. I didn’t need to hear it from the weatherman, however, to know it was true. And while I was at work one particularly bitter cold night, I felt winter’s icy blast each time the grocery store doors opened to let shivering customers in, some of whom were still shaking with cold and visibly chattering teeth when they left again a few minutes later.

I saw the frost heavy on my car even as I approached it at the end of my shift, and couldn’t wait to get inside and turn the heat on high. But I was stymied by a problem I’d never encountered before. I slid the key in the lock, but it refused to turn and open the I door! Fighting the overwhelming cold and my mounting confusion, I repeated the process again and again without any luck. The door lock was simply frozen shut.

My remote control had been lost in a sledding adventure a week or so earlier, so the only way to get inside the vehicle was by direct key entry on the driver’s side door. The trunk opened fine, and I briefly considered trying to wiggle through the crawl space between the trunk and back seat. A quick test showed that even that had to opened from the inside. It was time to holler for help.

Called for advice and assistance, my husband suggested heating the key with a lighter. A non-smoker myself, I hurried back into the store to purchase one and ran the flame over the key repeatedly before inserting it again into the lock. Despite repeated attempts, there was no change in my situation; I was still denied entry.

Surely there was some kind of door-lock de-icer on the shelves of the grocery store I’d just exited for the second time, but back inside once more I looked in vain for any such item. Out of luck and hope and very near tears, there was nothing else to do but call my husband for a ride home and wait there for the spring thaw. His favorite football team was in the fourth quarter of a playoff bid; the last thing he’d want to do is get in the car to come and get me. I clutched the key tightly in my right hand as I walked back to the car, holding the phone to my ear with my left. As I delivered the bad news I stuck it in the lock one final time, tried to turn it…and finally it moved! Holding the key in the palm of my hand must’ve warmed it sufficiently to unfreeze the lock when it was stuck in the slot. The button popped up, the door opened, and my long-suffering spouse was hard put to say which pleased him more, that his team had just won their game or that his rescue mission was cancelled. I hurried on home.

I’m reminded that we as people are locked out of a lot more than just cars. The world is a cold place in these days of economic struggle and emotional discouragement. We find ourselves unable to open doors that seem to be locked to employment we need, to relationships we long for with family members or would-be lovers, to success as defined in as many different ways as there are people to populate the planet. In our distress we look to external avenues of help…people we can lean on, products we can buy to assist us, or plans and advice from others outside the situation. Heaven knows we might even turn to prayer, hopefully as a first resort, but possibly even a last. And when we do so, perhaps it’s then we’ll realize as I eventually did that I really didn’t need to engage in any of the earlier options. The key to solving my problem was already in my hand. I just hadn’t yet realized that fact or the power it contained.

Our lives seem to run smoothly along on autopilot most of the time until we hit a roadblock of some kind, and in our distress we forget that in most cases we already possess what we need to succeed. The Bible is full of stories of the same. Again and again God solved the problems of His people by directing them to look at what they held in their hands. A quick review shows that He placed everything from ministry tools to miracles to the makings of the same within their grasp. And once their attention was focused in that direction, they found victory there also.

We can do the same. The next time we run into a door that won’t open we can take a minute to really evaluate the options before us and the giftings within us. Many times we’ll find that God has already given us a word on the situation that we haven’t acted upon, placed a talent within us that we haven’t yet developed, or given us the resources to meet a need in a form we hadn’t previously considered. Above all else we can rely on faith, hope, trust, and love - small words that move mountains so much more stubborn and frozen in place than any locking mechanism I might find on my car.

One final thought about the lock that wouldn’t budge. When I first inserted the key into the slot and found that it wouldn’t move, I couldn’t remember which way it was supposed to turn. I was afraid to force it in either direction for fear the key would snap, just like my emotions were about to. Likewise in life when we’re confused about which way to go and are reluctant to move at all for fear of worsening the situation, perhaps what we need most is to remember that we’re held in the palm of God’s hand, and looking to Him for help is always a turn in the right direction.

“For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would hearken to his voice!”

(Psalm 95:7 RSV)