Yesterday, we drove from Sioux Falls, SD, to Gillette, WY. We had planned originally to get as far as Sheridan, WY - about 100 miles beyond Gillette, but we were delayed by another "Oh No!" moment. Not the alternator this time, thank goodness, but a lost wallet. At some point near the Badlands in SD, Ellen suddenly realized she did not have her wallet. We stopped and thoroughly searched the car, but no wallet. So we thought - where was the last place she had it? Back in Kennebec, SD, about 75 miles back, we had stopped at a Clark Gas Station to get gas, and it was warm, so Ellen took off her flannel shirt. She remembered taking off the wallet, which she wears around her neck on a strap, when she took off her shirt. Thinking about it, she decided that the most likely possibility was that she put it on top of the car while she took off her shirt and then forgot to retrieve it. So it would have fallen off onto the road somewhere, but where? We talked about whether it was worth going back to look for it, and decided it was. So we headed back to Kennebec. From the car, I found the tel. # for the Clark Gas Station, called them and told them our problem. No one had turned in a wallet, but the manager said he would look around. He said two wallets had been retrieved there recently, one with $3000 in it! So we were not that unusual! He took our cell phone # and said he would call if he found it. He never called. About an hour and a half later we arrived at the Clark Gas Station. I went in to see if there was any news and Ellen started walking up the road we would have taken with the car. No news inside the store, but when I came outside, I saw Ellen coming down the road and she waved triumphantly! She had found her wallet about halfway up the entrance ramp in the middle of the road! It had been run over several times, so it was dirty, but everything was in it! Wow! Sort of a miracle. It reminded me very much of an incident that had happened almost fifty years ago when Betsey's glasses were lost on a trip to Chicago. That incident became a children's story at the Guilford Church years later - and I have attached it below.
But - that delay meant that it would be 1 a.m. by the time we got to Sheridan if we tried to get there. We would be driving through Wyoming wilderness at midnight, with possibly no cell phone service. What if the alternator decided to fail then? I decided to cancel the motel in Sheriden and we stayed instead in Gillette - it was only 11pm when we got there. It was worth what I had to pay for the cancelled room to get that peace of mind.
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| The wallet, safe in the motel room after its adventure (and a bit cleaned up) |
Here's the story - it was part of a book of Shirley's and my children's stories which I published a few years ago, which is why I have it!
319 - Lost and Found
September
30, 1990 and June 29, 1997 - L
This is a
true-to-life story that happened in our family. It’s about a pair of glasses.
[Larry takes out a pair of glasses.] I would like you to help me in this story.
I want you to pretend that you are this pair of glasses. Become this pair of
glasses in your imagination. If glasses could feel, like a human being, I would
like you to try to feel what these glasses are feeling in this story. Every now
and then I’ll ask you what you are feeling.
This story
goes back to a time about 30 years ago when our daughter, Betsey, was about 10
years old. She had just gotten a new pair of glasses. We picked them up at the
optometrist’s office just as we were leaving on a trip to visit my brother,
about 200 miles away, a fairly long car trip. Betsey was excited to have her
new glasses, and so she put them on and we started down the highway. What do
you think the glasses were feeling? [“Different” . . . “Wonderful” . . .
“Glad”] Yes, they felt good. They were finally being used.
About 60 or
70 miles down the highway Betsey got sleepy - she almost always got sleepy when
she rode in a car. She wanted to take a nap in the back of the station wagon.
So she said, “Dad, would you please hold my glasses while I’m sleeping.” So I
took her glasses and put them in my pocket. What are the glasses feeling now?
[“Safe”]
At this
point Shirley was driving. We usually traded off driving so neither of us got
too sleepy. But not too much later, she thought she would like me to drive. So
we stopped, I got out, went around to the driver’s side, got behind the wheel,
and we started down the road again. Maybe a half-hour later, Betsey woke up and
said, “I’ll take my glasses now, Dad.” So I reached into my pocket - no
glasses! They were not there! We stopped the car, I looked through all my
pockets, we searched all through the car - no glasses. We finally decided that
when I had gotten out of the car to change drivers, the glasses must have
fallen out onto the road! Brand new glasses! What are the glasses feeling now?
[“Scared” . . .“Sad” . . . “Disappointed”] You can imagine what I was feeling.
STUPID! And I was feeling very badly about letting down my daughter. But it was
too late in the day to do anything about it. We were due at my brother’s. The
glasses were somewhere by the road, but who knew where? So we just went ahead
with the Thanksgiving weekend, and Betsey and the rest of us had to let go of
the fact that the glasses were lost, and we all tried to have a good time.
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| The lost glasses beside the road |
Sunday
afternoon we started back home. All weekend I had been thinking, “Gosh, maybe
we could find those glasses.” Meanwhile, what do you think those glasses had
been feeling all weekend? [“Lonely” . . .“Bored”] Maybe not too bored because
there were cars whizzing down the highway just a few inches away. [“Scared.”]
Yes, scared. We got into the general area where we thought we had stopped
beside the road to change drivers, and we thought maybe if we went over to the
other side and went slowly along the edge of the highway we could see the
glasses. So we went across and started going along the edge very slowly, and we
hadn’t gone very far when I looked in the rearview mirror, and guess what I
saw? [“The glasses?”] No - I saw a police car with its light flashing. He
pulled me over and said, “You can’t go that slow.” We explained what we were
doing and why, but he said, “I’m sorry, you just can’t go along like that on
this highway.” So we let him get out of sight . . . and just kept on going as
we had been. We got to a place where there was an entrance ramp onto the
highway, and suddenly we got excited because we remembered we had pulled over
just beyond an entrance ramp like that. “Yeah, yeah, I think that’s where it
was!” So we slowed way down and looked carefully - and guess what!! [“You found
the glasses.”] We found the glasses!! There they were! They were beside the
road, and we picked them up, and they hadn’t been broken, they hadn’t been run
over, no one had stepped on them, they weren’t scratched, they were just like
new! What are the glasses feeling
now? [“Happy”] You bet! Sometimes in our lives we feel just like these glasses:
lost, forsaken, abandoned, lonely, sad, no one cares about us. But there is a
little parable here. All the time those glasses were lying beside the road feeling lonely and scared, we
were caring for them and wanting to find them. And I think that’s the way God
is when we are feeling like those glasses. God is working very hard to find us!
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