The Unusual in the Everyday

In July of 1988, I went with a group of 20 friends on a white water rafting trip.

It was the summer between my two (yes, two!) senior years in college, since adding a minor in Bible had stretched my normal 4 year degree into 5. I had rented the basement of a couple I knew from my Colorado church, found work as a temporary office assistant, and proceeded to throw myself indefatigably into having fun every moment I could.

The rafting trip was part of this pursuit. I rode with a couple of friends to Buena Vista, Colorado, which was a couple of hours away from my Denver home. We met up with our group at a rough park to cook up hot dogs and have a picnic lunch before our rafting adventure.

Dan, the married organizer of our group, led the way in tossing a football around and skipping rocks into the river while the hot dogs were cooking. We were having a blast until Dan let out an anguished yell. His wedding ring had flown off his finger with a particularly vigorous football toss and landed God knows where.

We all stopped and listened as Dan made an emotional speech about how much this ring meant to him and how it symbolized his deep love for his wife, Janet. And, he also said that Janet would probably kill him if he didn’t find it.

The group of us who weren’t cooking lunch – romantic singles that most of us  were – sprang into action. A few huddled with Dan to say a quick prayer while others began to search.

I was of a mind to pray while I searched. We were reasonably sure the ring had gone missing while we were far enough away from the river so that we didn’t need to be concerned about it being underwater. Instead, we searched the dry, rocky ground where our football game had been going strong.

We searched and searched. Under bushes, through evergreen needles, around logs, in the cracks between rocks. The time was passing too quickly. We were due for our rafting appointment soon.

Dan was beginning to despair. Half the searchers had given up and were eating hot dogs. A few of us searched on, eschewing our lunch in our efforts to round up the “One Ring.”  (If you need some idea of it’s importance, click here )

I, and a few others, were the last ones still looking for Dan’s ring. I knew we were going to have to leave soon, but I planned to pray and search until the last minute.

Coming to a small hillside that no one had searched yet, my eyes were drawn to a white button sitting on the dirt, shining in the sun. I was wondering where in the world it had come from when I slowly looked up the hillside to see…. a perfect gold circle resting directly above it.

Dan’s ring!

Grabbing the ring, I walked over to a glum-looking Dan and, without saying a word, dropped the ring into his hand.

Bedlam erupted. “My ring!” Dan shouted. He grabbed me in a hug and lifted me off the ground. Everyone chimed in with happy exclamations.

Dan slipped the ring back on, then climbed into the lead car to take us to the rafting company. I noticed that later on he wore river gloves to make sure his ring stayed put in the violent ups and downs of the whitewater.

Somewhere, sometime, someone had lost a white plastic button off some article of clothing. This innocuous item had been part of an answered prayer to find a much more valuable lost item. God really did know where Dan’s ring was and led me to it.

Where has unusual, divine intervention hit you smack-dab in the middle of your everyday life?