Skip to main content

what once was lost

Yesterday I lost my most treasured possession, my wedding ring. After putting Miriam down for her nap, I realized I wasn't wearing it and had a sick-in-my-stomach feeling because I couldn't remember taking it off. I called all the stores where I'd stopped earlier in the day. No luck. I searched high and low in the house. Nope. I called John and left him a message, letting him know and turning his stressful day into misery. I called Dad and he immediately asked if he could pray about it.
For those of you tracking with the Hine fam saga, you'll know Dad's prayer meant a lot to me. Ever since Tim passed, I've found it difficult to pray with conviction and to believe that God might really answer our fervent prayers. Hearing Dad's faith-filled prayer pricked my heart, making me ask myself if I really believe God loves me and answers prayers.
Once John got home from work, he got out his headlamp and looked into the garbage disposal and under the mattress (in addition to every other imaginable place in our home). As we lied in bed, I reviewed every move I made from the last time I remembered having the ring. The only time that made sense where I might have taken off the ring was at Bed Bath & Beyond where I tried out a sample hand balm at the checkout counter. But I had called them and they hadn't seen it.
This morning, Miriam and I braved the wintry mix and headed to Bed Bath & Beyond. The woman at the checkout counter showed me the note by the register with my name and phone number; she reiterated that they would call if they found my ring. I asked if they have surveillance cameras and then the manager came out to help me. I showed her my receipt with the time of my purchase and she went back to review the surveillance footage. About 10 minutes later, a man came out and asked me to describe my ring and then produced it, taped to an index card. I teared up and all I could manage was, "thank you so much."
I called John and Dad, saying "praise God" for this answered prayer. Today, God lavished His love on me and reminded me He is faithful (even when I waver).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rare Disease Day 2024

Today's Rare Disease Day. There's sometimes a particular weightiness to life with a rare disease. All the appointments, emergencies, traumas, doctors, therapists, medicines, opinions, schedules and upset schedules. My touchpoint is being mom to my precious girl with Wiedemann-Steiner Syndrome  (WSS). You'd have to spend a day or week shadowing me to know what it's really like. Doesn't that sound alienating? As though you couldn't possibly imagine if you're not living it? Well, maybe. But think about a time of immense grief you've lived through, or a time when your world seemed to be falling apart around you and it felt like everyone else was completely unaffected. I suppose it's a bit like that. You might have thought that those around you couldn't possibly know how that experience felt to you. A couple weeks ago, I started keeping a list of all the extraordinary things that happened in my life due to my daughter's rare disease. I learned a c

Startup Day 676: MVP coming soon

Hunkering down and revisiting user data consumed much of my last hundred-odd days, resulting in a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Simply built using Softr and Airtable (with tons of gratitude for  INVANTI 's support), I'm testing the willingness of Disability Self-advocates and Caregivers to find and write reviews of providers they recommend. Of the 200+ pain points expressed by Empowered Together's community, 88% can be addressed by the online marketplace simulated in our MVP. Users get to recommend respite providers, social activities, and therapists they love. We're testing a shift from Word of Mouth recommendations to tech-enabled referrals and lead gen, leveraging the collective voice and purchasing power of the disability community. This progress energizes me as a founder. This could be the key to unlock support for families affected by disability. My narrative for a startup bootcamp's application summarizes it best: As Empowered Together’s founder, Sarah has a

Startup Day 703: MVP live...

It's official, you can visit app.empoweredtogether.us  to see what we've been building! It's been a long journey to get here though this is really just the beginning. Yesterday, I reflected on why I'm doing this ( watch here ). I want to dive a bit deeper around the concept of creating the future I want to live in with my kids. I'm building a marketplace to connect families affected by disability with recommended businesses. I hypothesize that this will increase the rate of excellent customer experiences for People with Disabilities (PwD) -- 80% of their customer experiences are currently FAILURES! I also hypothesize that businesses will see the value in welcome PwD and society will slowly become more inclusive and accessible. Big dreams, I know, but that's the future I'm creating. On the personal side, creating that future would be meaningless to me if my kids and I didn't get to enjoy it together. That means it's equally important for me to engage