14 January 2012

The miracle of the trail mix

History is full of accounts of miracles.  One need look no further than the Bible for a primer on miracles.  For instance, there was Moses and that whole parting of the Red Seas.  This one worked especially well for the fleeing Israelites, although I'm sure Pharoah's soldiers who drowned would argue the efficacy of said miracle.  Manna from heaven would be another.  The Savior was a source of many miracles - raising the dead, feeding thousands, His atonement.  The list goes on.

Today it seems that miracles aren't quiet as spectacular and the word gets tossed around lightly.  For example, "It's a miracle that Lindsay Lohan hasn't landed in jail this year."  This is a clear example of the word 'miracle' being misused.  That Miss (and I use that word loosely) Lohan has not wound up in the clink again is not a miracle.  It's a fluke.  The miracle is that she's not dead yet, but I digress and I don't want to dwell on that train wreck any further.

Rather, I give you the miracle of the trail mix.  The what?  You read that right...the miracle of the trail mix:
Miraculous!
Last night, the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I joined a few of our fellow Church members at the Chicago Temple.  It was a lovely evening and as the night drew to a close, my amazing wife looked over at me and as I took her hand in mine, she pointed to her wedding ring.  It took me about a tenth of a second to see why she wanted me to check it out.  The center stone, her diamond, was gone.  So were the prongs.  The entire setting had gone the way of the wind.  Gone, gone, gone.

The following went through my head simultaneously:  I can't freak out.  This has got to be upsetting to her.  I can't curse in this most religious of settings.  I can't cause a stir trying to find it.  Worse comes to worse, it's all covered under our insurance policy.  Why, though, when I'm unemployed, does something like this that's going to impact the wallet happen?  All at once, these thoughts rained down on me.  We quietly stepped away and began to recreate our steps that evening.  We determined that the setting could have disappeared hours earlier.  It was not going to show up where we were.

At this point, we were praying fervently that the setting would somehow, somewhere turn up.  We got to the car, scoured it, to no avail and so it was a long ride home.  I got the sense though that all would be well.  Granted, I'm not sentimental and so am not as attached to the sentimental value of the ring as SML was and rightfully so.  We got home, and scoured SML's car.  We went through the gloves she'd been wearing.  We went through through trash and nothing.  At this point, I was ready to go to bed, set to call the insurance company in the morning.

It was at this point, the screaming started.  Not my screams, but SML's screams.  She found the setting!  She remembered grabbing a handful of trail mix earlier in the day and thought she should look there. There it was! In a bag of trail mix.  The screams quickly turned to tears of joy and relief.  Again, not from me but from SML.  We were quite relieved at the turn of events.  We were most grateful.  We'd experienced our own little miracle.  We won't soon forget the miracle of the trail mix.

2 comments:

Monty Newlin said...

I'd count that as a miracle. And I'm glad you guys didn't freak out at the temple -- although we have had a couple of nights with a swarm of workers inspecting the floors throughout while trying to calm a nearly hysterical wife.

Middle-aged Mormon Man said...

Glad you found it. We had to replace a lost one once - still don't know what happened to it.

Very glad you didn't eat it!