Losing it

My Name is Annie MacDuff, and I RARELY lose ANYTHING. Even if my room becomes messy I know where things are. I know where my roommate's things are. I've never had to replace a debit card, I've never had to remake a key, and I know where to find each of those little extra buttons that come with fancy shirts. I can drop a hair elastic under my dresser in my closet, and weeks later when I'm in a rush I know right where to find one. 

In my whole life I have permanently lost 4 things. One was a winter head band that I accidentally left at elementary school up on the shelf above the coat hooks in grade 3. I lost an "A" charm from a necklace. I left a black and white rain jacket belt at a house in Moncton, and I lost an earring at my school. 

In my first year of university I lost my keys, and after searching for well over an hour in my tiny room in residence I couldn't find them. Even though I had company, I dropped everything I was doing and searched for my keys. Later on a girl who had been visiting me earlier came to tell me that she had left with my keys and then realized she had two sets. 

In the past few months my life has been a tad bit hectic, in all honesty, just a tad, and so I've been misplacing things. Right before I was scheduled to move back up to university and start math classes I misplaced my graphing calculator. I've left my travel mug in a classroom, almost lost my calculus text book, and most recently my student id card went missing. 

I'm losing it! 

I'm going to go mad. 

I set my student id on the corner of my desk under my debit card. It's missing. My room is tidy, and I've searched for it multiple times. No luck. My student id card is my bus pass, my library card, and the key to student discounts at retail and grocery stores. I did the walk of shame to the id place, then to the admissions office to pay, then back to the id place to get the id, and back to the admissions office to get the id validated. The strange thing is, that even though I have an id, I'm still searching for the old one. It matters. It may seem insignificant, but it matters a great deal to me, it's my id card. 

This whole reflection of losing things makes me think of a story that happened a long, long time ago. A few men went down to the Jordan river to build a house where they could live. They started chopping down trees, when all of a sudden the axe head flew off into the river and sank. The devastating part was that the axe had been borrowed, and the men couldn't afford to replace it. They asked one of the men who was with them, the one who was a leader figure,  for help. They took him to where the axe head sank and the man threw a sick in the water. The axe head then rose to the surface and the men were able to get it and return it to its owner. 

Yes, you've probably guessed that Elisha was the leader figure, and God mad the axe head float. It's an example of how God takes care of even the smallest needs that we have. On the same day that I needed a new id card, I was given a ten dollar bill, you know, which is the cost of a new card. I'm not one to say that God is the one to make parking spaces miraculously appear for those who pray in the parking lot, but I do think there are many small blessings that we overlook. I didn't overlook the ten dollars. Though an axehead and a plastic card may seem insignificant  I can assure you that a pricy borrowed object, and a university student's passport are held with value. 

My name is Annie MacDuff, and I don't always lose things, but when I do I combine a little elbow grease and prayer and hope they will turn up...maybe even out of the blue (water).