Recently my husband and I went away for a few days to get refreshed. On this particular trip God taught me a wonderful lesson in prayer that I want to share with you. The first night of our vacation we decided to go to a large outdoor shopping mall. We had a so much fun. After we had been there for several hours I realized that I didn’t have my big yellow purse on my arm. Now this purse is huge and bright yellow. It just makes me happy to look at it and you can see it a mile away. We started back tracking and realized I had left it in a coffee shop we had stopped in earlier. As we sat at one of the tables to drink our coffee, I set my bag in the chair next to me and forgot to pick it up when we left. We went back there and asked if anyone had seen my big yellow purse. No one had. We began to realize that someone had probably picked it up and walked out with it. Thus began our detective search.
W
e stared at everyone as we walked around and my husband even began going through trashcans looking for the bag. You have to remember that we were on vacation so I had everything in that bag – our vacation money, credit card, check card, extra key to our car , my blackberry and besides all of that, my brand new lipgloss! I think that was bothering me the most.
After searching for a while my husband and I decided to go to our car and pray together. We sat in our car, held hands and ask God to help us find that purse. We didn’t know where it was but He did. We searched for about an hour longer but found nothing. It was dark and quite late so we decided to give up our search and go back to our beach house. The whole time we were praying. It wasn’t until we were on the road that we realized that the keys to the beach house were in my yellow bag. My husband called the police to report the missing bag. They told us to meet them back in the parking lot of the mall to make the report so we headed back that way.
Right after we got there, my husband noticed a security guard on the other end of the parking lot, getting off of work. He ran across the parking lot to him and asked if he had seen a big yellow purse. The man smiled and asked my husband to follow him back to the security office. He did and when he stepped in the door my yellow bag was sitting in there waiting for him. The guard said that apparently someone had walked out of the coffee shop with my bag intending to steal it but had a change of heart and turned it over to him. Even though everything had been gone through nothing had been stolen – not even the cash.
My husband asked when it was found and it was about the same time that we had gone back to our car to pray. We learned something important that day about prayer. God answers specific prayers with specific answers. I’m sharing this story with you to encourage you to pray specifically. If you think that maybe the details of your life slip by unnoticed, be assured that God knows and cares. Keep a journal and record your prayer requests and then record when and how God answers. Then when you have a discouraging day you can pull out that journal and remind yourself of God’s faithfulness in your life. The Bible says that He knows all of our details and that He cares about every one of them, even about details as small as my yellow purse.
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Praise the Lord! The Lord is a prayer answering God!
I left my wallet in a public restroom at Publix. When I returned 5-7 minutes later it was not there. No one had turned it in so I called the police, canceled my credit cards. My husband and I stopped and prayed. We began to pray for the person that took it. We prayed for their health, salvation, peace, and that the love of God would over shadow them. What ever evil intention that the enemy had plan it would not unfold. To God be the glory!
The next morning a stranger pull up in my yard on his motorcycle with my wallet in tow. Stating he found it in the restroom at Publix and he did not turn it in because “everyone working behind the counter aren’t honest”. He also said that he liked the sticker I had in there: “This property is protected by the blood of Jesus.” I thank the Lord and know that prayer works.
Thank you so much for sharing this story. God is so faithful and continually amazes me with His attention to all the details in our lives. I love when He gives us fresh new things to praise Him for. Thank the Lord for that honest stranger on the motorcyle who returned your wallet!
God is good!
Keep living for Jesus!