Small and Simple Things

It was one of those "summers without a Summer" for our family who moved shortly before school started after a long remodel.

Our new neighbors hosted a Welcome Block Party for our family.

One of the neighbors, Lydia, was wearing a beautiful necklace. I complimented her on it before realizing I had seen it before! Not this one, but one just as unique and identical had been brought home a couple of months earlier by my "treasure finder" son.

It had an intricate silver chain and a round diamond set in a circular filigree setting with chips of diamond surrounding it.

Lydia mentioned it was a gift from her mother to herself and each of her daughters and was precious to her.

"Did you loose one?" I asked. "My daughter, Rachel, lost hers awhile ago! She was sick about it. We looked and looked but never found it,"Lydia replied.

I told her my son brought a necklace home and we tried but didn't find the owner so I put it on a shelf and forgot about it.

She came up after the party and I went to get the necklace. It was not there!

Store returns and miscellaneous things were piled on the shelf but the corner where I had safely tucked it, there was no necklace.

We said a prayer together and began searching: moving things systematically, sweeping the floors, going through moving boxes beneath the shelves. After about an hour and a half of searching, I found the chain dangling off the far side of the shelf.  More searching and the pendant remained lost.

Lydia had remarked several times,"Oh Rachel really needs this right now!"
 Before Lydia left, she took the chain and said she would not tell Rachel about the necklace yet.

After putting kids to sleep, I stayed up searching several more hours. It was like looking for the elusive needle in a haystack.  Because of our recent move and the remodel still going on, we had boxes upon boxes stacked in dust and building debris. The challenge seemed too much.

"Why would Heavenly Father have my son find and bring home this necklace, only to have it disappear again!?"

A scripture I had heard recently ran through my mind. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." (Mark 9:23) I believe!  I am going to find that pendant!

The following evening was trash night.  After a full night with children and family responsibilities, I once again put my kids and spouse to bed and then began searching again.  I brought up the garbage cans from the street, worries that my daughter's vigorous vacuum cleaning in the area where the necklace was lost would mean that she had thrown it out with the vacuum contents.

I had been praying intermittently knowing that with God ALL things are possible.  If anyone knew where that pendant was, He did.  Why did he not answer my prayer?

I had learned in Sunday School that faith was an "action word" and required work for it to happen.

Towards morning, my son came outside to join me.  I still had not found the necklace. Disheartened, I was sifting through dirt in an outside planting box collecting old screws and metal to throw into the trash before returning it to the street when my hand picked up an unusual "screw."  It was shaped just like a brass bracelet that I had been given the Summer of my Freshman year.  It had disappeared many years before! I felt comforted that even though it was not the necklace, Heavenly Father was aware of me and my prayers.  The thought came again--keep searching.

A few days later, I was cleaning some rocks that line a large painted mural in the basement prior to new carpet coming.  I climbed up to an area not cleaned for some time and felt behind the rock and found a pendant.  My hand brought a necklace pendant I had never seen before! (Judging from where it was laying behind a rock, it had fallen through a crevice in the ceiling.)

At one point of excessive worry the impression came--do not give up on this search but put it to the back of your thoughts for now.

Weeks past and I had forgotten it with the hectic pace of a large, busy family of young children.

Last Friday the scripture in Mark 9 came back to me. 

23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Then a thought came and displaced the doubt and fear I still harbored. "I do not know the Lord's timing, but I know He hears and has answered my prayers in the past. I'm just going to have faith and believe."

Sunday after Church, my son Jonathan knocked on my door.  "Mom, Dad.  It's important."
When I opened the door, he came to our room with the pendant in his hand!

He had found it on his floor at the foot of his bed?!

This doesn't make sense because we had taken all his clothes to be washed and I wrote him a note the night before thanking him for making his bed and tidying his room. I had sat at his desk, looked at his bed and nothing was on his floor or by his bed.

It DID give me an opportunity to bear testimony to my kids and our foreign exchange student about God hearing and answering prayers and being concerned with the details of our lives--even the small, seemingly insignificant things (on a grand scale). 

I delivered the necklace back to Rachel and Lydia--who started to cry and gave me a big hug. (Also, I shared the story first with a bishopric member at a temple recommend mtg. This man has lost his house to the bank and has been praying for guidance. I hope the Lord spoke to him through this simple story.)

I was marveling yesterday because even though it was unexpected, the answer came about miraculously.  Do miracles still happen today? The definition of a miracle is "a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency."

Is it possible that many small and simple miracles happen often but I either do not have "eyes to see them" or "ears to hear them" or the energy to record all the ways the Lord plays a part in my everyday life?

We have been "ponderizing" on Alma 37:6-7

6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

I feel pretty small and simple but yesterday we were rejoicing over the "lost coin."

Luke 15:9
 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?

 9 And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.