God is good to me

The most stuff, right? The weekend with a lot of things, a lot of people, a lot of chores to be done and things to be executed just so. Mouth ulcer just thinking about it. Then this happened.

I was driving to work this morning, and I remember swiping the key-card that admits me to my parking garage. And, from the time it takes to drive from that swipe-in checkpoint to my favorite parking level…the key card was no where to be found. Oh, no. I needed to get to work in a timely fashion. So, I left and wrote a note on my hand in BIG LETTERS, “Parking Tag,” so maybe I would have time to search at lunch.

All morning I prayed I would find it. (Nothing like the frantic prayers to St. Anthony, right?) If you lose your card, it costs twenty dollars…just to LEAVE the parking garage. Plus, I would need to buy a new one and this one was a gift and a new one would run, what, hundreds of dollars? Probably. PLUS, with out-of-town guest visiting Detroit for the weekend, I was relying on my quality parking garage…I don’t have a relationship with any of the local lots anymore (since I don’t park in them anymore, I’m now at the garage) so I wouldn’t have a parking spot for this weekend of guests. Ack. No. Please, no, even though there does happen to be (by the grace of God) a twenty dollar bill in my wallet. What I’m saying is: I could get out of the garage, if I couldn’t find the card. But, I really wanted to find it.

I went to mass and prayed hard.

Then, I went to my car.

The garage isn’t super well lit (hello, parking garage). The interior of my car is black. I’ve noticed in the past few weeks how challenging it is to find things in the black interior. Add the poor lighting and…match made in not-heaven. Also, the seats sit tightly to the console. Close…but enough for a card to slip through, assuredly.

I looked everywhere. I looked in the back seat, on the floor, in the wells of the doors. I looked in my bags, in the compartments, on the floor of the garage. Nothing.

I prayed some more.

I was going to go back, defeated, but, with a final rush, I was like, “It must be here somewhere” and I took the maglight I haven’t returned to my father just yet (sorry, padre), and set myself to my task one more time.

Have you ever vacuumed a car? You know how your tush kind of points in the air because you’re on the ground in a car? That was me. But, remember, it’s dark in this garage. And the street outside was noisy, so I was like, “This doesn’t seem safe.”

So then I locked myself in my car, for safety. And then I was like, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t reach all of these spots.” But then I countered myself, “THIS IS WHY YOU TAKE CIRCUS CLASSES! TO BE FLEXIBLE!”

And then I snaked all around, looking.

STILL NO LUCK.

There was one place I hadn’t checked, though. And it would require the most snake-y position of all. I lifted the steering wheel as high as it would go. With my knees on the passenger seat, my stomach on the console, my shoulders beneath the steering wheel (my butt high in the air!), I lit the space beneath the driver’s door with the maglight. This was my third time checking under there. But, maybe the new angle…yes. Yes, indeed. Hidden behind a wadded Kleenex: my swipe-card. I couldn’t even reach it while looking at it, that’s how twisted I was; I had to turn my head to reach my arm beneath the seat, between wires and bars, feeling for the Kleenex so I could find the card, cheek against the fuzzy car-carpet.

And, I found it. My fingers felt it. MINE!

I grabbed it, pulled it out (kissed it? did I really kiss it?), and prayed a million prayers of thanksgiving.

I walked back to my office, renewed. For God, in His mercy, hath seen it fitting to return to me what was given in grace in the first place. Amen.

Seriously, though. It was a reminder that, hey: God loves me. He wills for my good.

Ah. Now, let me just remember that forever, right?