The Debit Card Life Lesson

There once was a sad, OCD, frustrated girl who lost her oft-used debit card.

Wait. Let's be honest. OK, not a girl, a more... "mature" woman with white hair. (She always wanted silver, God gave her genes for stark white).

So, there once was a sad, OCD, frustrated, mature, white-haired woman, and oh my, she lost her debit card.

She used it one day...

And then the next day when she looked for it in that particular pocket in her purse to use it again, it had vanished. Poof!

At first, no big deal. Happens sometimes, and it's always been in one of a few other places.

No, wasn't in any of those places.

A flashlight search of the car, under the seats and everything, nothing.

Hmmm.

Panic is nipping at her heels.

This is TERRIBLE!

That's her OCD talking. And it starts driving. Well, speeding. Vrrrroooooommmmm!!!

She looked high and low and over and under and around and in and out and just, everywhere. Including places that the debit card simply could not be because she knew she had not been in those places.

And then, she did it all over again. And again. And again.

What am I missing? The card has to be somewhere that I'm not looking because I haven't thought of looking there. Where have I not looked? Or, Where did I look and somehow not see it? I need to look everywhere again, just in case!

She kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and coming up empty.

This is TERRIBLE!

Oh yeah, I already said that. But it's double terrible. Seriously.

Well, OK, not really. But at this point, OCD has unabashedly taken over her brain.

Finally, she opens her front door just a tiny bit, like she's in a hotel or apartment, and the door has one of those chains that keeps it from opening enough to allow someone in. Yes, she barely cracks open the door, and Logic, who has been pounding on the door incessantly while being drowned out by OCD, begins to speak. Softly, gently, and, Logic speaks logically. A nice change from OCD's constant over panicked yelling.

Logic says quietly: "Hey. You have exhausted every option of where the card could be. You have turned over every rock for miles. You have racked your brain until all the racks are gone. Now it's time to give up."

She wasn't a quitter, but she was exhausted,from trying so hard. And she knew what this would mean... giving up meant resigning herself to jumping through all those super inconvenient hoops that go with cancelling one card and getting it replaced with a new card and new number. A hassle.

But with a deep sigh, she admits defeat, and she agrees to give up. Logic smiles and then leaves, knowing she will do the right thing.

That giving up was in the process of happening the next day, a Monday. She had a dentist appointment and grabbed a light jacket to wear in their freezing office. After the appointment she headed out to the car, planning to head to the bank to cancel the card. Took her jacket off (super hot summer time) and folded it to put in the passenger seat.

As she handled the jacket to fold it... wait, what's this? She felt something in the jacket pocket.

The CARD!!!

Then of course, she remembered. On Friday, she had worn the jacket because it was a gloomy drizzly day when she was out running errands, and she used the card and put it into her jacket pocket.

There once was an overjoyed, mature, white-haired woman celebrating in a dentist office parking lot. She could clearly be heard saying: "Thank You Jesus!"

Later, she started reflecting on the events of the past few days of being debit card-less, and then finally discovering the card in the one place she didn't think to look. She realized some things.

God is Holy, Mighty, and Sovereign; yet, He is also always working, always orchestrating in every aspect of our lives. She pondered this, and saw how it was that when she completely let go of the idea that she would surely find the card if only she tried hard enough, when she accepted that she needed to take steps to make it cease to exist, and when she was just about to follow through on that... it was at that exact moment that the card appeared.

She thought... hmmm. That sounds like surrender. As in, surrendering to God.

She who is me realized that God showed me something here about surrender. He used a tangible, physical, example - loss of my debit card - as an object lesson. He revealed to me what can happen when I choose to surrender, to back off from my constant desire to control.

Thank You Jesus.