The story of “The Time I Lost My Wallet”:
It all started on a warm April Saturday (which means 95 degrees because it’s Florida and summer started back in February). I had just finished an early morning workout at Trinity Fitness when my friend Erin H. text me and asked me and my sister if we wanted to go to Wickham Park (a popular local park with lots of trees, a lake that I’m to afraid to swim in, a nice retirement center, dog park and lots of people playing disc Frisbee) to watch a horse show and then ENO (hammock) afterward. Like the good friend I am, I replied, “YES” and got excited for a fun afternoon of laziness at the park. I packed up exactly TWO plastic Publix bags, one with my ENO and a water bottle and another with my lunch and snacks and placed both of them in the backseat of my car.
When I got to the park, I had to drive over a dusty dirt road to get to the horse arena area and parked in a very nice shaded spot. When I got out of my car, I grabbed my wallet and the Publix baggie with my lunch in it to eat during the horse show. My sister was working all morning (someone has to make the bacon in the family) and was planning on meeting us when she was done. I found my friend Erin, ate my lunch and we watched the horse show until my sister got to the park. When my sister arrived, all three of us walked to my car so I could get out my ENO and put my lunch items away.
I ended up putting one Publix baggie full of trash back into the car and grabbed the other plastic Publix bag with my ENO in it. My hands were full, so I handed the bag to my sister and asked her to carry it. We all started walking towards an open spot full of trees so we could tie our ENO’s up but as I started walking I noticed I couldn’t find my wallet. I assumed it was in the bag my sister was carrying, so I called out to her and said, “HEY MICHELLE, DO YOU HAVE MY WALLET?” and she replied, “YES”. So we get to a spot with plenty of trees and I ask my sister, “Hey Michelle, can I have my wallet?”. She replies, “Yeah, here’s your water.” I was like, “No, my WALLET not my WATER” and she ever so calmly and kind of confused says, “No I don’t have your wallet”.
I must have been so excited to set up our ENO’s because I kind of forgot all about my wallet and just figured it was in the OTHER plastic Public baggie with my leftover lunch trash that I had stuck back in the car. So we set up our ENO’s and during the next two hours of girl talk and relaxing, my missing wallet dilemma drifted into the back of my mind. After our two hours were up, we packed up and headed back to our cars. I put everything in the back seat of my car and just assumed my wallet was still in the other Public plastic baggie.
As I’m driving out of Wickham Park (I had to exit on the same dirt road as the one I drove in on), I heard a thump. It was a strange sound but I just assumed it was a rock hitting the bottom of my car, even though the sound it made totally did not resemble the sound you hear when a rock hits your car… if that makes any sense. Basically, it was hint #1 that when you hear a strange sound, no matter what, you should immediately pull over. But like any normal person, I shrugged my shoulders and drove off because after all, it was just the sound of a rock hitting the bottom of my car from the dirt road.
I turn onto Parkway and immediately start cruising down the road at 45mph. I’m not even 200 feet away from the entrance of Wickham Park, when I hear a huge, THUMP, CRASH, SCRATCH, and in that moment I realize, MY WALLET IS ON TOP OF MY CAR, AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! And to make matters worse, I had put my phone AND kindle inside of my wallet to go ENOing. I look in my rear view mirror and I see my semi-new iPhone in it’s brand new pink Lifeproof case spinning as it flies 30 ft in the air. That baby caught mad air. I see my phone hit the ground, bounce a few feet and then land exactly between the grass near the ditch and the solid white road line. All I can think as I am slowly driving away from my phone is, I hope my phone is ok, I hope my phone is ok.
In a matter of seconds, my mind is trying to process everything that just happened. I just witnessed my phone flying through the air and I could care less about my wallet at that point. My credit cards and license can be replaced much more cheaply than buying a whole new phone. Once I gathered my thoughts, I pulled over on a random side street, parked my car and proceeded to do the walk of shame on Parkway to go search for the spot my phone landed in. I am pretty sure this is my worst nightmare, having to get out of my car and walk on a busy road, looking for my phone and wallet because I was to dumb to stop the first time, but hey, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
It’s about 3:30 in the afternoon and I am sweating bullets because 1, it was 90 degrees out and 2, I am totally modified I even left my wallet on top of my car and have to now go and search for my missing phone. As I’m walking towards the spot where I approximate my phone may have landed, I spot it from a few feet away but it’s not totally out of danger yet. I am like an eagle eying it’s prey to eat, except I am the eagle and my phone is the tasty meat (do eagles even eat meat, I do not know). My (meat) phone is about to get ran over by a double wide trailer attached to a huge truck. I see the trailer approaching… it’s coming at me in slow-mo and I just keep praying, no no no no no, don’t run over my phone, please no, as I clench my teeth in anticipation. The truck and trailer pass by and my phone is still in one piece. Praise God. I make a mad dash toward my phone, pick it up and see that I just received a text message. MY PHONE IS OKAY, LIFEPROOF SAVED ITS LIFE! That company isn’t joking with their name. It survived an attack of being thrown 30 ft in the air. I make a phone call to my mom right away and tell her, “you might want to cancel all of my cards”.
At this point I am hysterically laughing at myself. My phone is perfectly okay, there’s not a scratch on it. But my wallet is not okay. I searched and searched for it but it was no where to be found. What I did find was my old FSU Student ID Card (yay for discounts at Goodwill still!), my voter registration card (super important), and my trusty Panera card because I eat at that place at least once a week. Those must have flown out of my coin purse attached to my wallet because the cards were scattered all over the grass, sidewalk, and even across the street and on the street. My licence and credit cards were with my wallet that mysteriously vanished into thin air, or it just flew into the ditch, you decide. I like the vanishing option better. I was actually super excited that my phone was okay and could really care less about my wallet. New phones cost $$$$, new credit cards are free, they just hold all of my money, ahaha! After about 5 minutes of gathering my phone, calling my mom, finding my kindle and very important food cards and old college ID, I decided to go home because I was hot, sweaty and hungry. Looking for your phone really works up your appetite.
Once I got home, my sister was wondering what took me so long, even though I left the park the same time as her. Well I thought, “you could never even guess what just happened to me” then I proceeded to remind her about my missing wallet incident, and how it wasn’t missing after all but now it’s really missing. After explaining the whole story to her, I decided to call in my search and rescue team, aka my sister, Michelle and our friend Erin to help me look for my wallet one last time in hopes it could be found. My sister and I left our house, picked up our friend Erin and went back to the original scene of the crime, aka “the spot where I watched my phone fly off of my car”. We searched and searched, but never found my poor wallet.
Later that night, I knew I didn’t just loose my wallet in such a dramatic way for no reason at all. There’s a lesson and a point to everything, we must always have our eyes and ears open to notice, see and listen to what God is doing or else we can easily miss it. I asked God, “I know there is a reason as to why I lost my wallet…what is it?” And very quietly, like a whisper, I heard, “I am giving you a new identity”. Those exact words didn’t strike me as odd though, I’ve know it for a while. He’s making me more like Him. Pulling me closer and deeper into his vast love. Raising me up into who I was created to be.
God used my lost wallet to clearly show me that he want’s my identity so firm and grounded in Him that nothing can shake me. He also knew I didn’t have enough money to buy a new phone, nor did I want to buy a new phone, so he saved my phones LIFE! God is so sarcastic! I am constantly seeking out different ways God speaks to me, and crazy stories like this are super obvious and all I can do is laugh at myself and the situation!
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