Donated Purse

Have you ever had a heart-stopping, adrenaline-rushing, blood pressure rising, fight or flight reaction to losing something?  

In these moments it feels as though all of the blood in your body rushes to your head and you can almost hear your heart beating in your ears.  Your stomach twists into unnatural positions and your eyes fill with tears.  

Your mind floods with thoughts of what MIGHT happen if you don’t find that missing item and you panic.  

Our minds are skillful at coming up with the WORST POSSIBLE outcome scenarios.  It may seem like you don’t have a choice about how to respond because our bodies naturally react before we have the opportunity to decide how to respond. 

I’d like to offer another perspective.

What if you could experience the exact same scenario with complete peace and a calm, quiet heart?  

Good news…You CAN!  

How can you prepare yourself mentally and emotionally to respond to something that is completely out of the ordinary with a potentially really negative outcome?

Practice peace in the little things.  All day every day we have little tiny things that don’t go as planned.  When those things happen, you can practice just taking a moment to recenter your attention on Christ.

If you hold a magnifying glass up to an ant, it looks HUGE!

I’ll start by telling you how my mind and body previously would have responded to an incident like this: fight or flight adrenaline, rapid heartbeat, lump in my throat, heaviness in my chest and tears in my eyes.  

It is 12:58 pm as I’m writing this post.  We will be leaving for the airport (which is just over an hour away) in two hours.  

In the two hours before we leave, I need to go to the bank, pick up my daughter’s prescription at the pharmacy, drop my car off at the shop to be worked on while we’re gone, and I still have to finish packing all the little last-minute things you do before a trip.

Of all the days to do it, my husband and I decided to open a safety deposit box with our bank today. Neither of us had the forethought to bring anything with us to put in it, so I had to go back to put stuff in the deposit box and he headed back to work to finish with the last of his patients. 

Yes, I know… busy little beavers we are. Nothing new!

We are leaving for the airport at 3 PM… keep in mind that I still have to go get Annie's medicine, drop my car off at the shop and finish packing. For a moment, I emotionally let myself entertain the idea that going back to the bank felt like an inconvenience, but it was important to my husband, so it was important to me. I checked my emotions, and tucking my soul away I thanked God, in faith, that I had MORE THAN ENOUGH time to do everything I needed to do and I went to grab my purse.

“Where is my purse?”  

It should’ve been in my backpack, and I THOUGHT it was in my backpack.  I can’t get past the security checkpoint without my drivers license …which is in that purse, so I NEEDED to find it. 

This was a slight problem.

I would need my purse to go back to the bank.  

I would need my purse to get my daughter‘s prescription. 

And I most definitely needed my purse to get on that airplane.

I looked in all the usual placesI might've dropped it when I got home. It was nowhere to be found, so I asked the LORD where my purse was.

Leaving the bank, I had deposited checks at the ATM so my purse was not in my backpack, it was in my hand.  I had then tossed it in the backseat with my backpack, but not in my backpack, so I immediately thought of the backseat. I went to look, but… No purse.

“LORD, my purse is not in my backseat. Where is it?”

THEN I HAD THE THOUGHT… “Is it possible that when I donated the stuff that my daughters had put in my backseat I accidentally thrown the purse in the donation bin?”

This is where I NORMALLY would have freaked out and considered all the worst case scenarios.  Instead I quietly said, “LORD, I’m thankful YOU knew I was going to do that and you already worked it all out exactly as You intend, for my good and Your Glory.”

Without any heightened emotions, I calmly called Goodwill and fortunately they picked up.  The woman who answered the phone said, “You got lucky.  Normally the stuff types of items that were in that bin would have been put directly on the truck for the Goodwill Outlet.  Someone must’ve been looking out for you.  Someone noticed the little purse and found it had credit cards and an ID so I set it aside.”  I said, “The Someone who was looking out for me was God. Praise the LORD!”

With no fanfare I said to my girls, “Girls, I accidentally donated my purse at Goodwill.  I’m going to pick it up, make a deposit at the bank and pick up your medicine.  Get your last minute stuff ready.  We’ll be heading to the airport shortly after I get home.”

Had I not been willing to be "inconvenienced" by my husband’s request for that deposit or my daughter’s last minute request for me to pick up her medicine, I likely would have never thought to look for my purse.  I probably would have driven my family to Columbus believing the purse was in my backpack, parked in long-term parking, took the shuttle to the airport and stood at the baggage drop of area rifling through my backpack like a nugget head looking for a purse that had LONG before been put on a truck to the Goodwill Outlet. 

I would have kissed my husband goodbye, hugged my girls and my daughter’s boyfriend and said, “I’ll let you know when I get a new flight figured out.  Go ahead and head to California without me.”  No use in FIVE people missing their flight. 

I would’ve gotten back on that airport shuttle with my backpack and carry-on bag to get back in my car to drive home anxiously wondering WHERE on earth my purse might be. When I got home, I probably would have torn my house up looking for it. Can’t book a new flight without KNOWING I’ve got an ID!  

What if my purse was just gone…like completely gone?  I’d have to cancel all my cards, gather documents and make a trip to the BMV for a replacement card.  

Can you see how “getting in my soul” about it all could have caused a LOT of mental and emotional turmoil?

Can you see how if I would’ve said what I was thinking, “Greg, this is ridiculous!  We’ve flown to California for our annual family vacation for 21+ years WITHOUT having a safety deposit box.  We will be fine going without putting the stuff in it this time.”  I could have, but it was VERY important to him, so I made it important to me.  Honoring my husband SAVED me! 

I’m so incredibly thankful for how this day is turning out!  Not just that I got my purse back.  That’s good news, but I can see how I’ve grown in my relationship with God and I can clearly see how that SPIRITUAL maturity has led me to honor my husband better.  I can also see clearly how honoring what my husband believed to be very important benefitted me. 

I walked through the entire experience in COMPLETE PEACE, and not even an ounce of anxiety, concern, panic… Just a quiet question for the LORD and a quiet heart trusting for an answer.

If you’re wondering, I just picked it up, and of course, I had to share with the woman who handed it to me how the LORD led me in peace.

She asked with a big smile, “Did the Holy Spirit do one of those little taps on your shoulder?”

She thanked me for sharing my experience and said, “Honestly, we had found it 10 minutes before you called and I had set it aside. Normally the type of things that were in that bin, the entire bin would've been dumped into a big box and put on a truck for the Goodwill outlet.  God definitely had His hand on this purse!

There is NO REASON they should've looked in this purse! It was empty other than the cards because I had cleaned it out, so it didn't weigh anything.  In addition to that, it's dirty and it's got holes in it. There's nothing about it that would tell you “this purse was something someone might want back.”

This experience reminds me of Isaiah 65:24:

It shall come to pass

That before they call, I will answer;

And while they are still speaking, I will hear.

I’ve had many people argue with me about God answering prayers.  One of the primary arguments is that God is not some magic genie in a bottle, that you just rub the lamp and He immediately makes things happen.  I try not to argue with anyone who aggressively argues against faith, but if it appears there is a willingness to hear my take on faith I will answer with this:

I believe that BEFORE time began, God KNEW EVERYTHING!  He isn’t a puppet master pulling strings and making us do things, but He KNOWS EXACTLY what we’re going to do.  He knows what we will choose, do or say before we ever think to do or say it.  He KNOWS ahead of time what we will pray and I believe with all of my heart that from the moment HE KNEW I would be asking, He was already working it out….maybe not in the way I am asking or in my timing, but ALWAYS for my good and HIS glory. 

PRAISE THE LORD!