My Keys!!!

Hey Everyone,

Why don't you get comfortable and let me tell you a little story about a miracle. But before I get too far, let me first flesh out the background for this particular miracle.

Around August 30 or so I lost my keys. This turned out to be the first difficulty in a long series of upsets, heartbreaks, and losses that would plague me for the next month and a half (and for all I know may still be going on).

Before I lost my keys things were better than they'd been in a long time. I was happy, I was successful, my social/romantic life was heading in a positive direction...really, things were great.

So in this happy state I went home to visit my family, and I had a wonderful time visiting, but the entire time I was there I couldn't get out of my mind how excited I was to go back to Utah-- to my happily unfolding life.

When my trip was over and I started to pack, I realized my keys were nowhere to be found. I checked everywhere I could think of, but I didn't have any luck. My dad told me that he'd look for them after I'd left and that if he found them he'd mail them to me. So, I got on the plane and left. I figured I must have left the keys in Utah.

But my keys weren't in Utah—my keys were lost. Try to imagine how frustrating it is to tiredly get off a plane, drive for an hour, feel dirty and unkept, and then to come home to find that you're locked out, that all of your stuff is in your car and your old apartment, but you can't get near any of it cause you don't have the keys. I just ended up sitting on a street corner, totally stranded in a place I used to call home. It was very depressing... I had returned, but I was locked out. I was in the right place, but denied entry. I was home, but not welcome. I felt how Odysseus must have when he returned from Troy to find that his house was no longer his home (okay, I'll stop now... I'm just getting melodramatic and I think you get the idea).

I don't want to bore you with everything that has gone wrong since then. But I'll give you the highlight reel. Since I've returned I've found that most of my friends are either moved, graduated, or busy. I've had a falling out with the person that brought more joy to my life than any other (and through losing them I finally realized how much I cared about them all along), I moved into a ward I didn't like, I've had one of my best friends die--and many other things (some of which I've blogged about)...but losing my keys happened first, and because of this, losing my keys became symbolic of everything falling apart.

I think for the most part people haven't been aware of all that has been going on with me. I've shared the lighter moments on this blog, but I haven't ever really opened up about how much I've been hurting. I can usually hide my suffering pretty well so most people (unless they know me really well) aren't even aware of what's going on. But I've been dying inside. For the past month I've felt removed and cold. I haven't felt connected to people. Relationships have felt forced and strained. Even a simple hug feels uncomfortable. Put simply, I haven't been well. I've lost too many things at once and too fast for me to cope with it all. Basically, the best way I cope with things is writing (I think this is why I blogged so prolifically in September (and why I set the goal for 15 posts)). Anyway, that’s probably enough background. What you need to know is my life was great, I lost my keys, after that first problem things continued to get worse and worse until I became very sad, and whenever, in my sadness I looked back on everything, I always longingly referred back to things “before I lost the keys.”

Now to the more immediate present…

Saturday, for various reasons, was the worst day in a long series of escalatingly bad days. On Saturday I had about 3 hours sleep, I had a horrible headache, I went to my friend’s funeral and saw his body for the first time since he died(causing a flood of buried emotions to come to the surface). And a few other things of a more personal nature happened exactly how I didn’t want them to. By about 1AM I wasn't even speaking very coherently. I ended up getting home at about 3:30 in the morning, feeling just dead. I couldn’t sleep at all. I sat on my couch and talked to a friend for a bit, and then I laid in bed for a while. I went to sleep around 5 or so (oh, and to make things worse for some reason I was ridiculously cold too…really shivering).

So on Sunday, as I was walking to the church building, I turned to my friend and said "Man, I'm not ready for a testimony meeting, I'm sure I'm gonna hear some testimony about how when life is bad, all you need to do is say a prayer and then bam! life is great. Well, I pray a lot, and my life is spiraling down and I don't think those little prayers make it very far." I then said "I'm sure there will be some testimony about someone losing something and then finding it and how this helps them know the church is true...well, I lost my keys, I certainly prayed to find them, and I've had no such luck."

Now here is where things start to get amazing. The third testimony to get up (and this really did happen, I have witnesses) was a guy who said "I'd like to bare my testimony and share a story. A few days ago I lost my keys and I looked everywhere for them, but I couldn't find them, so I said a prayer and then looked again, I almost immediately found them, I want to share my testimony that God looks out for us in even the small things."

My friend turned to me and laughed, not only had I complained about this sort of testimony, but this was the very example I had used. I reveled in the coincidence for a while, but then let it slip from my mind.

I didn't think of this testimony again until late in the day when I was breaking my fast. My prayer went something like this:

(and I hope this doesn't sound blasphemous, I just pray more informally than most, and I joke around with God when I pray--I think we have a good understanding so I don't worry about lightning)

"Dear Heavenly Father, things have sort of stunk lately, if I'm supposed to be learning something please point it out a bit more clearly. Also, I'm not one to complain about favoritism, but why on earth (if it was in fact an answered prayer) did that guy get his keys back? Of course, taking my understanding of miracles, there are some you do and some you don't, and he could very well be projecting meaning on a mere coincidence, but if you did hook him up, man...I'd really enjoy some love right now. (then some personal stuff here…)And also, if you've got favorites, what can I do to get on your good side for a while."

I like to think that my prayers sometimes make God laugh...but maybe my prayers are the reason I have such bad luck. Either way, today, just a day after my prayer, a miracle happened and my keys were found!!

Talk about a hook up!!...and fast service. Now, please keep in mind how much we looked for those keys. I searched for hours and so did my dad. I called the airline I flew on, and the airport...nothing. And then somehow today, the day right after that testimony and my subsequent prayer, right when I felt like I couldn't take anymore (and keeping in mind how much the keys had come to signify), I got a call from my brother, where he said "Hey, did you lose your keys? Cause we have some cleaners over and they found some keys under the couch, I checked the thumb drive and there was an essay on it about law, it made me think they were yours."

I can't begin to relate how much this little miracle meant to me.

Those keys, by being the first of many losses, have come to represent all my losses. Their return, by extension, seems to signify to me that things will finally start to get better. Of course, the strange existential funk I've been in, and all the losses I've experienced, can't all be made right. But some of them can, and I at least have a bit more faith that I can now fix the ones in my control, and to hope for the one’s that aren’t in my control. I just can't help but think that the little tender mercy of finding my keys after they've been lost for so long, especially when the timing was so amazing, means something significant, at the very least it can mean that God is saying “keep your chin up and know I’m not deaf to your problems” at the very best it’s him saying things will get better now. But either way, I know he’s not rallying the universe against me now, which is a really refreshing thought (joking).

And before I end this post, I just wanna point out how cool God did all this. I gotta give him credit for both impeccable timing and style. I mean, yesterday's coincidental testimony, my frustration at hearing yesterday's testimony, my subsequent plea for help, the symmetry in the story arc of having the keys disappear and return signifying both loss and redemption. That is good story telling. Way to go God! I will stop questioning how you run your universe(s).

p.s. My good friend Rebecca just pointed out to me that my keys were discovered on the same day Columbus discovered (more like bumbled) into the Americas.