Prodigal Denim

Today is a day of found things!

My roommate got her watch back after leaving it at her karate studio last week. And I got my jeans jacket.

For some reason, the jeans jacket was a really big deal to me. I couldn't let it go. I always hate losing things, but since I discovered it was missing yesterday, I actually prayed about it a lot. Tons of things went through my head: Am I being materialistic? Am I not trusting God to provide the funds to buy another one, or to help me find one that suits me the way the old one did? What's the deal?

I can explain some of the deal. It's a pretty useful article of clothing, and as I mentioned in my shopping post, it's hard to find items that suit you -- when you do, you pounce. The color, the cut and style, these all suited me. And I hadn't paid much for it -- I was afraid that to replace it, I'd have to spend $80 or so. Although I'm on a shopping kick, it irked me that I'd have to spend money on something I'd just recently owned. Besides, how can I enjoy the new clothes I've been purchasing, and enjoy the long-awaited means to buy them, if I'm being taught some lesson about not clinging to worldly possessions?

And did I mention that I hate losing things? I hate it. Don't you? It feels so wrong, like illness or betrayal.

I also become sentimentally attached to possessions. I chastise myself for this a lot, but perhaps it isn't straight-up materialism. Regardless of whether it's good or bad, it is.

The last place I remembered having the jacket was at the gym last week, so I called them first thing yesterday morning to see if they'd found it. Debbie, the very nice girl on the phone, checked the Lost and Found and every women's locker, and found nothing. When I came home last night, I dug through my room again. Nothing. Today, a desperate woman clutching at straws, I went back to the gym to ask again, and was the creepy chick opening every locker. Nothing.

I prayed the whole walk home from the gym. Giving the situation to God, asking that He would bring the jacket back to me. Or, failing that, that He would bless whoever took it (I prayed this reluctantly) and that He would provide one as good or better. I asked Him to help me trust Him by helping me believe that He cared about this, because I care about it, and He cares about me. I didn't want to hand my worries over to a God who thought I was bad and didn't deserve a nice jacket. I wanted to hand them over to a God who cares about our little things as much as He cares about our big things -- because when you think about it, compared to how big God is, everything about us is little. And if He wants us to be faithful in small things, then He must be faithful in small things Himself.

And really, who's going to trust a God if they don't believe they can really trust Him?

Well, long story made medium, I still held out hope that the jacket would be somewhere in the apartment. It made me happy just to think about getting it back. I came home, turned on the lights, walked into the living room, and there it was, tossed right on the couch. At first I wasn't even sure it was mine -- I checked the tags and labels to make sure. But hooray! Happy jacket. Happy happy jacket.

This may sound like a silly story of a messy girl who can't keep track of her clothes. But I'm confident that God is demonstrating that He cares about silly, messy girls and their wardrobes -- and loves said girls enough not to call them silly. I can trust Him to care about my desires -- for a jacket, or for a job. He cares about my feelings and my eyebrows and my safety and my acne. God is worth tears and leaps and psalms and potluck dinners and blog posts and endurance and study and long conversations.

While I was trying to figure out how messed up I was to miss a jacket so much, God was setting me up for a very nice surprise.

Thanks, Lord. I look forward to wearing my jacket tomorrow :-).