Tender Mercies

Friday morning I went out to get in the van and couldn't find my keys. Normally I might have panicked when they were not hanging on the key rack, or somewhere in my purse. But Russ was working from home, so I just borrowed his keys and went on my merry way to pick up friend Sherry's little one for art class.

It was not until Friday evening when Russ was going in one direction in one car and I was going by myself in the other that I realized that I still hadn't seen my keys. I quickly searched my purse again, looked around my computer, and started searching the countertops.

And then I heard one of my children say it.

"I put the keys on top of the van last night. And then you made me come inside."

On top of the van? If the keys had been left on the van, they could be anywhere. Half-heartedly I made my way to the top of the driveway, reasoning that if I'd driven out of the driveway fast enough (one can always hope!) they might have fallen off when I'd turned out onto the street. No such luck.

Russ was ready to leave with the kids in the van, so I quickly grabbed a ziploc bag of rice and threw it onto the top of the van. I hoped that this would be a reasonable facsimile of keys, and would fall off of the van in the same place, leading us like bread crumbs to my poor ring of keys.

I watched as the van pulled out of the driveway and drove off down the street--rice bag still sitting comfortably on the roof of the van. A few minutes later Russ called to tell me that the rice bag had come off has he turned out of the neighborhood and onto the busy road. I hoped that the momentum of his turn would have caused the bag to fall out onto the grass at the side of the road, but no such luck. It fell right down onto the road. I figured at that point that my keys had probably been run over 100 times during the day, and that I'd be replacing the expensive clicker & electronic key. Ouch.

I was kind of depressed as I went back to getting ready to leave . We had just totaled up all of the wedding expenses earlier in the day, and while we felt good about how much money actually got spent, I still was not ready to need to spend over $100 for lost keys.

About 15 minutes later Russ called again, with a story for me. He had gone to friend Sherry's to return her little one and pick up her teen for a fireside. They were going out of the neighborhood the back way on their way to the church. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a sign on a mailbox, and thought it said something about "keys" on it. So he stopped the van and backed up.


He got out of the van and walked over to the mailbox, and sure enough---there were my keys!

Now for those who aren't familiar enough with the geography of my life, let me explain. From my house to friend Sherry's house is aproximately 11 miles, most of which are driven above 55 miles per hour. I counted (on my fingers) and I think there are 6 right turns and 4 left turns to her house. Then driving into and out of her driveway, and then another 2 right turns before the street where Russ found the keys.

What are the odds? Quite frankly, I think the odds are better that I'd have triplets.

When I told Sherry what had happened, she said "I think that Heavenly Father loves you."

I couldn't agree more...