Have you ever believed something ridiculous? I have. For the last few months I have been sure God was going to bring my house keys back to me. They were stolen while I was running at the track by my house. The young men who took them? I smiled at them and gave a friendly wave, as they walked past me laughing. I assumed they were laughing at an inside joke. Unfortunately, I turned out to be the inside joke they were enjoying.

They grabbed my keys and quickly disappeared. By the time I realized what had happened, it was getting dark, cold and my kids were hungry. My husband wouldn’t be home for another two hours. Every second that ticked by brought me closer to a meltdown.  I found myself praying God would bring good from this situation.

Almost immediately, two neighbors I had never met before,  Kenny and A.J. came over and began to help me look for the keys. They looked even harder than I did.  Even though we didn’t find the keys, we found we enjoyed visiting. They have become our friends since then. Several times I have thought how I would never have met them if my keys hadn’t been stolen.

Now here is the ridiculous part of the story, I always knew my keys would come back and God was not finished with this story.  There is no rationality in that sentence. I know that sounds crazy.  The odds were not in my favor, there was no logical reason I believed.  I just did.

So every few days I would think about my keys and wonder where they were. I would pray for those men who stole them- then move on. Periodically I would say to my husband “I can’t believe my keys haven’t turned up yet!”. He would smile at me and say nothing.

This morning my friend Joyce and I were enjoying breakfast together when my phone rang. On the line was a kind man who introduced himself as  Mr. Chuck. He said he had a story to tell me. Early this morning, some men from Central Maintenance were working at my son’s elementary school. They were doing some heating and cooling work on the roof and found…MY KEYS! They gave them to Mr. Chuck who looked them over and noticed on my key ring was a gym membership number. Guess who also is a member of my gym? Mr.Chuck! He had a break coming up so drove across town and asked the gym for help in tracking down the owner of the keys.  Less than an hour later, I had my keys and a picture of Mr. Chuck.

Mr. Chuck is a Christian, who told me all about his family, his church and  his work at the school. Mostly he  was extremely concerned that all credit be given to the men of Central Maintenance. So not only is a sweet man, he is humble as well.  He didn’t even bat an eye when I told him I knew God was going to return those keys. Maybe that is the sweetest gift of all. To be able to share our God stories and not be rejected, but embraced.