When I was 14 I made the choice to be baptized and after that moment, God taught me so many lessons. That summer I went on my first mission trip. We went to Kentucky to to construction ministry. A group of about 25 people went from my church and both of my parents came with us. We drove all the way there from Pennsylvania, which was about a 12 hour drive. We drove in my dad’s van so we could fit all of the group plus the tools we needed.
We spent a week there helping 2 different families fix up their homes. Our group was split in half to help the 2 different families. One of the houses was right next to where we were staying, and one was farther away. Every day we would worship as a group in the morning and then pack the van full of the supplies we needed for the day.
One day, we had the van all packed and ready to go but we had to help the first group do something before we could go. I forgot something inside the van that I needed before I could help the other group so I asked my dad for the keys to get back in quickly. He gave them to me, I got what I needed, closed the doors, and ran down to the group.
On the way down, I noticed that I was missing something. Right before I got to the rest of the group at the other house, I realized I didn’t have the keys to the van. I thought back, and I left them inside the van before I closed the doors and instantly my heart sunk. This was something that happened a lot when I was a child and my parents would get really mad at me when I would do things like that, but this was even worse, because we were in the middle of nowhere and everything we needed was in the van, and there was no way to get a new key and there was no way to get into the van other than breaking a window which would cost a lot of money to fix. Shame began to consume me over this small little mistake I made. I felt like I left everyone down, and I just became a huge inconvenience to everyone. I knew that in the grand scheme of things, this was a pretty small problem but my shame and fear stopped me in my tracks, and I was afraid to face the group and tell them how I messed up. At that moment, the woman who lived in the house we were helping to fix came out. She saw that I was upset and came over to talk to me. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her that I had locked the keys in the van and that my dad was going to be so upset with me when he finds out because that is our only key and there is no way to get in without it and the group was depending on that van to continue doing our work. Then the woman asked if she could pray about it and I was really confused. At that age, I thought the only things you could pray about were family issues and serious illness. I didn’t think praying for my lost keys was something God would care about but I couldn’t say no to a prayer, so I let her pray. She prayed that we would find the key, and that my dad wouldn’t be upset and that we could continue to do the work that we were called there to do. It was a very short prayer, but it put my heart at ease.
I then found my dad and told him what had happened and to my surprise, he wasn’t mad at all. He simply said that we should go up to the van and check out the situation. So we walked up to the van, and my heart was still heavy becuse I knew I had locked the key inside, but when we got to the van, we tried to open the door, and it wasn’t locked! The door opened with no problems, and we saw the key sitting on the seat right where I left it, and everything was fine, and we were able to drive to the other house and do our work that day.
That day, even though it was so small, taught me just how good and faithful God is. When we pray, He listens, no matter how small our request may
God promises this to us in Luke 11:9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
God is a good father, and He wants to provide for us. He wants to talk to us and take away our fears and worries and nothing is too small or too big for Him.
