“You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭139:3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I lost my glasses on Monday, the cute ones, the ones a little bolder than my typical tortoise or black. Like most people my age, there are spare pairs everywhere. But, not on Monday.

We drove down the pretty road bordered with deeply rooted trees. Her mama had left a forgotten treat in the mailbox.

So early in the day, my readers must have slipped from my pocket or fell from my lap.

It’s an interesting dependence I now have on them, like a security blanket for a baby.

I catch myself thinking I have a pair like a headband only to pat the top of my head to be sure they’re there and find only hair.

On Monday, I was without them. I warned people I responded to in text. They were unbothered by my typos.

By the end of the day I was managing just fine. My daughter didn’t find them on the road and I decided, oh well they’re just gone.

I gathered my things in the passenger seat once I was at home. Glanced down in the space between seat and console and saw a strange sight. I decided my husband had left some stuff in my car.

A little glass case, black with faux fancy logo with a pair of readers in the color peridot, my birthday stone.

I lost them so long ago.

Not as fancy as the blue, but I loved them and missed them.

Why am I writing about finding reading glasses?

It’s the thought that came.

The thought about good in God’s time and God’s way, about the way answers come when we accept we don’t know.

The way God is the very best at the “art of surprising”.

On Tuesday, my granddaughter wanted another treat. It was close to lunchtime and she had a slight runny nose, but would never tell her grandma she was feeling bad.

(Memories of her strong mama here, rarely voicing a need or trouble.)

I let her lay on the floor, not flailing but fussing. Let her let her mood play out, allowed her to reconcile what she wanted with what her person in charge decided was best.

From the kitchen, I heard her whine change to elation.

“I found Gamma’s cross! Grandma, I found Gamma’s cross!”

She ran over and handed me the tiny gold cross, the one Gamma lost months ago and we all searched until we settled on not finding and stopped searching.

I called Gamma. Told her, “Guess what?” and quoted our precious granddaughter.

She found the cross.

Under the couch, found when a little toddler tantrum decided to get quiet and lift the fabric of the couch to think. How she spotted it is really nothing short of a miracle.

Yesterday, we had a sweet day together. The back seat of my car strewn with a used pull-up, tiny books, little cards and juicy cups, and “guess what?”

My fancy blue glasses.

God is good always. Always present, always waiting for us to find Him.

I had a thought yesterday as I listened to the words of a popular song “My Jesus”.

I thought “I don’t feel the nearness of Jesus now.”

An honest admission that confirms feelings aren’t always the most accurate assessments of our joy or our pain.

To admit a lack opens our hearts to a closer examination of whether we’ve been working too hard to find God and forgetting He’s never left us.

Like the glasses, appearing when I decided I’d never find them, they were waiting for my discovering.

How does it make you feel to know that God is sovereign, knows everything?

David understood.

His sinful choices, his wandering away always led to an unrelenting confession,

God you never left me, I once again lost my way.

Choosing to know God knows everything about me is either scary and vulnerable or it is surprisingly and steadily comforting.

It’s our choice.

Either way God never misplaces us, forgets where he left us or refuses our finding when we go on our own way.

There’s a tiny mustard seed charm lying somewhere that came unglued from my bracelet.

It’s been lost so long I’ve stopped searching.

Gamma and I are hoping our angel finds it. Boy, that would be some surprise!

But, if not all is good with my faith.

With God and I

It is well with my soul and God is close.

Prone to wonder and wander.

My Father certainly knows my way.

“God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares.

See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way— the path that brings me back to you.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭139:23-24‬ ‭TPT‬‬

Continue and believe.

Find God today.