Where could it have possibly gone!?
I JUST had it, didn't I?!
I NEED that back.
It's crucial!
How will I buy gas/essentials without that credit card?
And, how in the world will I explain to my precious little sister that her generous last-minute donation towards my trip has vanished along with my wallet? The wallet I got in Guatemala, with tons of sentimental value, notes from best friends tucked away in the card slots, currency from 3 countries (not worth much in monetary terms, but worth a lot to my sappy sentimental memory-loving self).
How the heck is this happening to me? I don't lose important stuff like this! This is embarrassing!
(Oh look, self-pity turning into pride. Yippy-skippy. This is going in a great direction...)
I went back to my host family's home, trying hard (semi-successfully) not to be in panic-mode.
My host family was incredibly kind and helpful that night!
When I told them about my lost wallet, they dropped everything they were doing and sat with me around the dining room table to pray for me to find the wallet.
I was prayed for in 2 languages!
Afterwards, my host dad offered to bring out a flash light and go help me look in my car one more time.
We practically turned that car inside out.
There was STILL no sign of my wallet!
After about 40 minutes of attempting to call the bank and find out how to cancel my card and report it lost, and not being able to, I gave up.
It was getting late, and I was exhausted.
((Brief backstory: I had already misplaced at least a couple of other things that day, and had forgotten my guitar at the PBT headquarters 45 minutes away from where I needed it when I was supposed to have led worship. Making mistakes was the theme of my day.
So, I was already feeling like a bit of a failure before I ever realized my wallet had vanished into thin air. Earlier that day, my coach looked me in the eyes and told me, "Don't feel so bad about this! Yes, you blew it. But you need to learn how to blow it, and then accept the grace Jesus extends you. He thinks you're awesome, even when you forget stuff! You need to learn how to believe that. You give grace to others when they fail, so you need to learn how to give that same grace to yourself! I will be praying that God will give you plenty of opportunities to blow it over the next few months, so that you can learn how to cut yourself some slack, and receive the grace that has already been given to you."
So basically, he was going to pray that I would learn how to fail by being given more opportunities to fail in a way that glorifies God. And then, hours later, my wallet is gone.
So, dear coach, if you're reading this, I blame you for this whole ordeal. Just kidding. Kind of. But I still love you. I think.))
I spent a couple more hours searching my whole room; emptying my suitcase, searching every nook and cranny of the room and every piece of luggage I had.
And somewhere along the way, my self-pity/pride turned into something worse than sadness and embarrassment;
I was crushed. In tears. Wallowing in my perceived incompetence.
Questioning my WORTH as a person.
Woah. That escalated pretty fast.
Sounds kind of crazy, right? After all, it was just a wallet!
But it wasn't just the wallet.
I didn't lose my sanity over a lost piece of fabric and some paper bills.
There was more to it than that.
The lost wallet was just revealing some emotional/identity issues I had been pushing aside:
I extend grace to other people, but am somehow unable (or unwilling) to extend that same grace to myself when I blow it. (aka- everyone makes mistakes! Except me. How dare I.)
That's not ok.
I sometimes believe that making mistakes gets in the way of my ability to 'prove myself' and show that I'm someone who is worthwhile, even through Jesus proved that FOR me over 2000 years ago.
That's not ok.
I wasn't even being fully honest with myself about some emotional difficulties I've been facing over the last few weeks. I was trying so hard to convince myself that I was completely ok, that I wasn't even giving myself a chance to be honest about the fact that I was having a tough time. My initial strategy was diversion, not honesty.
That's not ok.
And so, losing the wallet was the tipping point God used to bring all of that junk to the surface.
Praise Jesus for that darn lost wallet!
I was finally confronting those places in my heart that God was/is still working on!
So there I was, a picture of pathetic-ness, crying my eyes out while on hold with the credit card company.
Real classy, right? Totally.
I eventually had no other alternative but to give the situation to God.
(Which would have been the best strategy from the get-go, but I was far too consumed in self pity to realize that!)
I went to sleep, and continued my routine the next morning, feeling much more at peace with myself.
(But still really wishing I had that silly wallet back.)
The story very well could have ended right there, but it didn't!
After a couple of meetings, I went out to my car later in the morning with one of my coaches to grab a song book from the back seat, and when I looked in the car by the passenger's seat,
THERE IT WAS!
The wallet! Right there, propped up in plain sight against the front seat!
Me and my coach were completely shocked- that wallet was NOT there the last time we were in my car. After searching the entire car so thoroughly with my host-dad the night before, and searching again first thing in the morning, I was completely dumbfounded to see it sitting there in plain view! (One of my teammates who had sat in that passenger seat just a couple hours beforehand was equally surprised- he said that he definitely would have seen it propped up there if it had been there earlier in the morning as he was getting into the car!)
I may or may not have cried again.
But this time it was out of sheer joy!
(I promise I don't usually cry as often as I seem like I do in this post! Or maybe I do.
Man, I don't know! hahaha)
I don't know how that wallet got there.
But all I do know for sure is that
God is good.
God is still good, whether or not I had ever seen that wallet again.
I don't have to believe that I deserve his grace when I blow it.
Because I don't.
But it's mine to take, and what possible reason do I have to refuse such a gift?
Jesus sees me so differently than I so often see myself.
He doesn't look at me and see someone who has yet to prove their value.
Yes, I blow it.
I fail.
But failure is an event, not a person.
I fail, but I am not a failure.
In moments when I struggle to see my worth,
Jesus still sees me, the whole me, and loves me anyways.
He sees you, and loves you anyways.
Maybe He just sees something that we don't.
(Last week's lake afternoon with the interns!)
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