I have spent the last week in a panic.  I felt like the woman in the Bible who lost a coin.  You remember the parable that Jesus taught:  "...what woman, if she lost one drachma coin wouldn't light a lamp, sweep the house, and diligently seek until she found it?  When she had found it (her coin) she called her friends and neighbors and said, 'Rejoice with me for I have found the coin which I had lost'."  Luke 15:8-10.

I lost my military ID card.  I keep it in my purse and only take it out when I go to the doctor, or pharmacy.  Everything else was still in my purse--only the ID card was missing.  I went through every purse I had used in the last few months.  No ID.  I cleaned out the car I use.  No ID.  My next door neighbor (Dean Bryant) came over thinking that maybe he could find it in my car.  Nope.

I called every pharmacy and doctor I had seen.  No luck.  I prayed about it every day--over and over again.  Finally, I gave up and  went to Tinker Air Force Base to get a new one.  Only to find the roads were blocked for resurfacing.  I spent an hour driving around detours trying to get close enough, so that I could walk to the building I needed to get to.  No luck--and after the Sunday fiasco of trying to walk to Brady's track meet--I gave up and came home.  I've had to admit that there are some things I can't do anymore.  I prepared myself for the fact that I would have to go back to Tinker next week.

Last night, I took my car in to be oiled, brake stuff, overhaul, etc., and left it at the dealer.  My niece was going to take me back to Tinker today.  I got in Ken's car--which is spotless because I rarely use it--to go meet my niece.  I thought, "What have I got to lose, I'll look under the seats, etc. even though I don't ever use this car."  Sure enough, there it was.  I began to rejoice, praise God, call my family and my neighbors who had helped me look for the card--just like the woman in the parable who was looking for her coin.  I thanked God a zillion times.  I was overjoyed.

To understand my dilemma, you would have to wait in a government office to know what reissuing an ID card would entail.  Birth certificates, retirement orders, etc., etc.  Oh!! how I dreaded filing for re-issue.  Plus, that wasn't all that was in the ID folder.  My SSN was in there too.  Plus ten or so other cards I need.  Luke ends that passage of finding the coin, (and my ID) this way:  "Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting."  That is so true.