The Lord of the Ring
/First and foremost, please keep up the prayers for our dear Bibles for Mideast Director Pastor Paul as he is still in hospital on a long, bumpy road to recovery.
We are still waiting for Pastor Peter Haneef’s newest mission report (sure to be exciting) from remote Tajikistan, where he is right now along with four other ministers. Please remember him and his team in your prayers as well.
Did you miss our earlier post about Pastor Peter’s own story of being dramatically ‘found’? It encompasses the amazing lost and found stories of many others (and of course continues to).
On that topic, I’d like to, at the request of many, present another entry in my own collection of Lost and Found stories.
I am famous for losing things, and continue to be astonished at how and how often they miraculously reappear.
The Lost Ring
Close-up of wedding ring
My husband Victor’s and my love of the interesting and unusual extends even to our ‘Russian wedding ring’ selection. We sport his and hers versions of a tri-colored design of intertwined rings of white-gold, yellow-gold and pink-gold. I like to think of the three interconnected rings as symbolic of Father (yellow gold), Son (pink gold) and Holy Spirit (white gold).
Victor’s ring fits perfectly and he never removes it. Since I risked my less snugly-fit (though now properly adjusted) ring falling off, it would come off each evening and spend the night somewhere near the bathroom sink, wherever we were, to be re-installed each morning after washing up.
This drove him crazy.
“What if you lose it?” he’d bemoan. “What if it goes down the drain?”
I’d just smile inside and out, knowing I’d never lose it and, well, yes, partly because it could, sometimes, be fun driving him crazy.
A number of years ago and still freshly-married, we decided to spend a few weeks skiing in Japan—a small country which, surprisingly, has more ski centers per capita than any other in the world.
We drove and bussed around, visiting many stunning mountains, chalets and resorts, all with beautiful, plentiful snow and friendly Japanese. As usual, my husband had fun shocking skiers and staff by hauling out his limited Japanese and so, instantly making friends.
At the last place we stayed, however, my ring went missing on our very first night. I of course couldn’t ‘confess’: part of me did not want his theory of my losing the ring to be true, while another part genuinely feared the anger he could occasionally erupt with.
So all I could do was pray my head off night and day, and continue to hope beyond hope. On our third and final day there, Victor was checking out as I stood nearby with our luggage—still ring-less, but praying and continuing to hope.
I bent over to tie my shoelaces. Suddenly and of course totally unexpectedly, the ring—MY ring—dropped out of the air and onto the floor in front of me.
Absolutely thrilled, my only sort-of-regret was I couldn’t tell my husband since it would mean confessing too much! But now of course, years later, he knows all about it. And our faith continues to grow with each lost then restored whatever.
