let lemons be angry

Sam and Jiet have been telling me stories about losing things, and saying prayers like, "God, I want to see it come back to me. I believe it will come back!" And God surprised them with His "efficiency."
And I wanted to experience it too, having only lost my wallet about three times, and three phones in two years, two of them within the same month.

1. Rings

I have two precious rings. One with a green stone, from my uncle's collection, and one from my mother, with dangling stones. I took them both out before drawing with charcoal, and put them on the worktable. Of course i forgot to put them back on, i am that way. When i finally remembered some hours later they were gone.

I remembered God's efficiency, and prayed hard instead of giving up as i usually do. Then i saw this classmate of mine who i don't usually talk to, and asked if she had seen the rings. She suggested searching the dustbin, "because people may just clear the table" by crumpling up everything within paper.

I did that, and after removing all the rubbish, i found the two rings at the bottom of the trash bag!

2. Wallet

Yesterday aimei and i decided to explore Mustafa at around 8 pm. "Watch your bag," she warned as we squeezed in. Mustafa is madness. It is insanity. It is a jumble of uncleared stock and thousands of people squeezing in tiny alleys. I clutched the mouth of my bag, but obviously not all the time. When i tried to pay an hour later i found that my wallet was gone.

We retraced our path through bales of cloth and fake flowers and umbrella racks, but it was hopeless. I was very tired and very calm. Aimei rushed around asking for the lost and found counter, which was a dingy table in a back alley through a door in the corner of the shampoo department. I filled in a form half-heartedly and we left. I filled in another form half-heartedly at the mrt station.

I was calm, and I was thinking, "God, you found the rings. You found sam's wallet. You are going to bring this back." But I also looked at the crowd and the madness of little india and my years of experience of losing things clicked a what-to-do-next button: cancel atm card, apply for i/c (which would be double the penalty now cos it was my second loss), apply for my other cards.

I was in such a calm daze that i took the wrong train and didn't realise it. Then my phone died. So in the quiet of the very packed train, i kept praying the Efficiency prayer. I prayed that He would work in my pickpocketer's heart to return my cards.

I remembered the story of Jesus feeding the 5000. What had struck me these few days was the crowd of 5000 who followed Jesus into the mountains because they saw how he had healed the sick and performed miraculous signs. They came all the way without bringing food. Jesus had to worry about feeding them; they obviously hadn't worried when they followed Him into the mountains. And when Jesus was about to feed them, He made them sit down. And they all sat down and waited and watched, as Jesus broke the five loaves and two fishes, and fed every single one of them until baskets overflowed with leftovers.

I felt that I had to learn to be like them: trusting in Him because of the things I have seen Him do, waiting for my turn, coming empty-handed to let Him feed me, sitting and waiting and watching.

So I told my father, "It will return."

At 4 am I got a missed call. At 7 am they called me again. "This is Mustafa, your wallet is here." I had never been more awake answering a phone in bed. The money was gone, my ez-link card was gone, but everything else was intact.

God could have brought me anywhere to teach me to have faith in Him. But he chose to bring me to the most unlikely place, a black hole for lost wallets, even worse than hk's h&m where i lost my last phone.

I prayed for opportunities to witness His miracles firsthand. And yeah i sure got that prayer answered this week, in heavy and harrowing doses.

Of course I don't think that God is a genie who grants wishes. Or that it is because of my faith that my wallet showed up. It has nothing to do with me. I could have had little faith and God would have returned my wallet to me to shame me and teach me that I must have more faith.

But as it is, I'm doubly, triply, ten times amazed.