Just before Christmas, one of our vehicles broke down. Scott and Dad looked it over carefully and found out what it was, then looked at what fixing it would take. It was too complex to do at home, the way they do most repairs, so we got a few estimates from mechanics. Ouch. The cost to replace the broken part was more than a 15 year old, 278,000 mile car was worth.
So we got preapproved at the bank for a small car loan and started looking. And looking. Finding an inexpensive used car that's not a lemon was proving really difficult.
After New Years, Scott heard ads for a place in Columbus, where he works. It takes donated cars and uses them to train at-risk youth in mechanics, then sells their completed projects for reasonable prices. We went out today, checked it out, test drove one, and decided to get it.
At which point, I noticed I was shaky and remembered I forgot to eat breakfast. There was a Big Lots across a couple parking lots, so I left Scott to do paperwork with the guy there (it's going to be his work car) and started walking across.
I tripped at the edge of the parking lot, checked myself over for injuries, and continued on, getting some juice and snacks for correct the shaky-low-blood-sugar issue.
On the way back, I found a car key on a ring at the edge of the parking lot near where some of the cars were parked. I turned it in to the guy for lost and found. He said the car I found them by was a Honda, and this was a GM key, but he'd see if he could match it up.
We did a couple of hours of back and forth between our bank in Mt. Vernon and the dealership in Columbus, but finally all the paperwork was signed and we could take our new second car away with us. We got there with the last paperwork just as the dealership was closing.
We collected the keys, the staff locked up and left, and we got ready to leave.
I couldn't locate my keys in my purse, so I used Scott's to drive home.
Once at home, while I was getting a piece of banana bread ready to eat, I had a thought.
What if the key I turned in to lost and found was MY KEY?
Yeah.
I asked Scott that, then said, "Oh, that can't be, that key was for a GM and the van is a Pontiac."
Guess who makes Pontiacs?
I searched my purse. Scott searched my purse. He asked, "How did you lose your keys on the way to the store?"
I said, "I don't know!!".
Then I remembered falling down, getting up still focused on food, and coming back thinking about the juice in my bags.
I'd had MY KEY in my hand, and was focused on "hungry" and "someone lost their keys, must not leave them in the parking lot!" and completely didn't notice that that key should look familiar.
Several hours later, I'm really regretting my lack of attention.
How often do we not notice the blessings we have, literally right in our hand?
We don't think we need that.
We think it's for someone else.
We're thinking about something else.
The need we think we have is not the one being met, right there.
We don't notice the opportunities lost until much later.
And then we are left with regrets, with wishing we'd paid attention to what was going on with us and around us.
Pay attention - God is meeting your needs, even before you know you have them.
He's meeting needs you haven't really identified yet.
He's looking out for what your need really is, not what you think or wish it is.
Think over your life - how many times has He done something, and only later did you notice that he was preemptively acting for your good, but you didn't know it then?
Notice what God is doing to meet your needs.
More importantly, notice how he is using you to meet the needs of others, perhaps the ones they too, haven't really noticed yet.