I received an email from one of my readers and I just HAD to share it with you. Check this out:
Hi Leslie,
I have been following you for over a year now and I can’t tell you how much these principles have meant to me and changed my life, AND the lives of those around me…
[Here’s my] experiment with the laws of thought over the past 4 weeks:
It is written in letter form to a girl who came to play soccer with us one Saturday and lost a special pendant from her necklace on the field.
The Pendant
As soon as I heard you had lost a piece of jewelry, I immediately wanted to help you get it back. Knowing from my past when I’ve lost necklaces or other jewelry that has meant a lot to me, I know how sad it can be, but I’ve also had enough experience of finding things miraculously that I knew it had to be possible to get this back for you. I went off to a corner of the playground and started to pray. I realized I had been a bit snippy in some of my remarks on the field earlier, so I quickly re-centered my heart and made myself right with God. Then I expressed my desire to help find your pendant and get it back to you. I knew it was on the field somewhere so I asked for His guidance to help us find it. I could feel that God really loves you, and wanted to give you your pendant back, so I was confident that we would find it!
I recruited my 5 year old son and my nephew, David, who had played soccer with us and told them that we were looking for a teardrop pendant that had been dropped somewhere on the field. They immediately got on their hands and feet and started prowling around “like tigers” (in their words 😂). It was seriously only a few minutes before David jumped up, saying, “I think I found it! Is this it?” We were all so excited and grateful, we immediately dropped to our needs to say a thank-you prayer for helping us find it so quickly. I knew it had been a miracle! But that was only the beginning…
Heading back to the car, we had been picking up some litter on the field and I noticed more trash in our car so I decided to do a little bit of cleanup before leaving. After gathering all the trash out of our car and throwing it in the trash bin next to the field, I got back in the car. As we were getting ready to pull away I all the sudden realized I had no idea where the pendant was! My stomach sank and I thought “I can’t believe I misplaced it this quickly.” But I knew I had just had it and it couldn’t have gone far. So I quickly prayed again, knowing that if God helped us find it once and I had it in my hand only a few minutes earlier, he could help me find it again. Immediately the thought came to check in the trash can. Sure enough, in my effort to clean up the trash, I had accidentally thrown the pendent away with the rest of it, and after searching in the trash can for a few seconds, there it was sitting at the bottom. Again I breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude, and, slightly reprimanding myself for letting something so precious end up in the trash can, redoubled my efforts to take good care of it. In the meantime, I texted a few people to let them know we had found it and to ask how to get it back to you. Eventually, I got a hold of Chuck’s number to text him the amazing news.
Later that Saturday as I was at someone’s house babysitting their kids, I got a text from Chuck saying that he would be driving into Nenana that night and could pick it up and bring it to you at first-day school the next day. Just as I was about to text him back, thinking that would be perfect timing, my stomach sank again as I realized I had no idea where it was to give it back to him. 😱 I had no recollection of where I had put the pendant when I got home. Thankfully, since I honestly wasn’t home to look for it, I thought I could buy myself some time by letting him know I wasn’t home that night but to let me know when the next available time to meet up could be. I went home and, this time much more frantically, prayed to find it. This time there was a total mental block of anything that happened when I got home from the soccer field. I could not even replay anything in my mind; it was like my memory was completely gone. At this point I was tempted to feel really guilty. Guilty that I had been so careless. Guilty I had disregarded the previous two miracles and felt unworthy to ask for it a third time. Guilty that it had been my fault and the result of my carelessness that the pendent was lost, and how embarrassing it would be to have already said we found it and then for me to have to go back and admit that I had carelessly misplaced it. But I KNEW I wasn’t careless, I cared a LOT! I couldn’t explain why I had been so absent minded, but I KNEW my heart was definitely in it and I cared a great deal about getting it back to you! I had had enough experiences to know that these self-critical thoughts were tricks of the adversary to shake me from my faith that it was possible to find it once more and return it. It was really tempting to give in to those feelings of unworthiness to ask a third time, but knowing the goodness of God, I admitted my fault of not consciously taking better care of it, and plead for grace, knowing that God cares about the details in your life and mine. I held fast to the vision of being able to give it back to you and even though it seemed like all was lost, I believed that it must still be possible.
I searched, and searched, and searched again, but still nothing. I thought, “Man, there really must be something special about this pendant, because if God already helped me twice, there has to be a lesson behind what’s happening now, because I’m really doing all within my power to find and bring it back.” Two days passed and I went to Wellness meeting. Chuck was there. My heart sank knowing that I still didn’t know where the pendant was, but I knew I had to be upfront and honest with him about what had happened– there was no hiding here! So after the meeting was finished, I told him everything that had happened, but expressed my faith that it would still turn up, I just had to be patient, and asked if he would pray too. Chuck was so compassionate and affirmed his belief as well. He told me that it indeed was a very special pendant, and that you had been so sad to lose it. That just redoubled my desire and commitment to exercise my faith that it would show up again. Chuck recommended that when I found it, I should type up the story to give it to you, so that’s what this is for! I went home and searched, and searched, and searched some more, again to no avail. It really was in God’s hands now, but instead of getting discouraged, I let myself feel peace, trust, and confident in God’s love and timing.
Over the next days I still battled with the thoughts that I had blown it, that I was believing in something unrealistic, that this was “too good” of an outcome to really be true, that this was expending too much emotional energy, and that you didn’t know I had found it yet (Chuck told me he had only let your parents know so it could be a surprise for you) so maybe I should just let it go. But I couldn’t. I had faith that if I prayed for this pendant to be restored to you, and I had already felt peace about it, AND had found it twice that IT WASN’T OVER YET. Just because it seemed like my prayers had already been answered twice and it was too late to ask again, perhaps my original prayer hadn’t been fully answered yet because the process wasn’t complete, and that this experience was PART of the process, just several obstacles that needed to be overcome to make the reward that much more sweet. So I kept holding on to that vision, and my confidence just became more sure that it was going to show up.
Last Friday evening as we were cleaning our house to have some guests over, my husband held it up and asked “is this it?” I can’t even express the emotions I felt as I saw that pendant again. Gratitude, awe, relief, amazement, confidence, peace, and more gratitude! But most of all, I felt the significance of this experience and what it taught me: that just because the battle seems lost, doesn’t mean it’s over. That self-disparaging thoughts will shake us from our belief of what’s possible and are a tool of the adversary to get us to feel unworthy of going to God with our needs, desires and worries. That God is faithful to bless his children with the sincere desires of their heart because he loves them so deeply we cannot comprehend! And lastly, the power of faith, of seeing it done and holding onto the hope of the final outcome and being guided to the next step of the process to overcome the seemingly impossible challenge. God is all about accomplishing the impossible and delights when we give him our faith to join Him in the process. Thank you so much for allowing me to have this precious experience by lending me your pendant. May this story add even more value to this already precious pendant. It has meant everything to me ❤️.
Isn’t that such an amazing and powerful experience?? Thank you for facilitating that for me… [and for] thank you for being such a powerful conduit for God’s principles to work in my life. These principles have quickened me and my life mission in so many ways!
Love you so much, Amie V. 🥰
Thank you for taking the time to share this, Amie!
I love how intentional Amie was in thinking “in the certain way” throughout the challenge. And that includes getting back on course when she felt herself getting off track. It’s not an easy thing to do, but there is really no better way to understand how this all works than by simply practicing the principles and exercising that rare faith muscle. Keep up the great work!
Do YOU have a story to share? Let me know!
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