Cotton ball moments

This year in primary the children have been given the opportunity to tell about a time during the week that they felt love from the Lord. Several children each week tell an experience and then they are given a cotton ball to put into a big clear container that says on it, "I am a child of God".

I have had a couple of cotton ball moments this week and thought I would share them.

First, I picked Tricia up from school one day. She was desperate for a restroom. I rushed to get her and her scooter in the car, hurried home parking in front of the house, and ran her up to the bathroom.  I unloaded things from the car and drove around to the back of the house to park. Then I helped Tricia finish up. About this time I realized that I didn't know where my cell phone was. I decided to look for it later but I felt such an urgency to find it that I kept looking. Coat pockets, purse, flat surfaces, out in the car, etc. When I realized it wasn't in normal places and that I needed to broaden my search to places like out in the snow or over in Riverton High's parking lot I started getting worried. I really didn't want to spend the time, money and energy to replace it. I said a quick prayer asking for help. I went back outside and traced my steps to the car, then went out the front door and followed my path out to the curb. In the road in the unplowed deeper snow along the curb I saw the very top of the phone coming out of the snow. I picked it up and  headed in the house feeling so grateful. It was hardly wet and working fine. In the house I went to the kitchen for a towel. Coming out of the kitchen I heard a snowplow coming down the street.  I went to the front window and saw that it had plowed over the spot where I had just found my phone.Had I not been prompted to look for it and felt such an urgency it would have been gone. I felt sobered and extremely grateful. It really was a small thing, insignificant in the long run, but it was a moment that I knew the Lord loved me and was looking out for me.

The next day...
I sat down at the sewing machine to start my Christmas sewing. I started to sew a seam and the serger made a horrible clacking noise. The feed dogs had fallen partially off, pushing the cover to the feed dogs and the presser foot out of place. I put it back together several times and it just kept coming apart when I tried to sew. Looking it over it seemed like if I loosened a screw and lengthened the piece it held it might hold the feed dogs in place. I also noticed that there was a hole that might be missing a screw. These of course were just guesses because I just thread and run the machines. I don't know how to fix them. I had had the serger serviced just a few months ago. It had taken two weeks and cost $80. Of course I didn't want to pay more money to have it looked at again but I also had ten pairs of jammies to make and with Christmas looming couldn't put off the sewing for a couple of weeks. I had a thought come into my mind, "you should pray about it." A good idea because I didn't want to mess my machine up further and I really needed it fixed. I said a prayer and then went downstairs to find tools. I needed an allen wrench in a specific size. Fortunately we have a tool that is a handle with a large selection of wrenches that fold down out of it. This didn't work though. The machine space was limited and the handle part made it too long. What I needed was an individual "L" shaped allen wrench in the right size. We don't have a set of these, we have random ones that have been parts of kits for things that needed to be assembled. I do have a couple of bins in the basement with random screws, bolts, etc where something like that might have ended up. I went to look. I dug through the bins and found a tiny one and then after a while also found a large one. One too big and the other probably too small. I decided to go try the little one just in case it was the right size. Odds were of course that it wasn't going to work. "It would be a miracle if this worked", I said to myself. This thought popped into my mind, " What would be wrong with a miracle?" Still doubting I headed back upstairs. On the way I remembered the story about a pioneer family who need money to cross a river. They prayed about it and then felt like they should go  fishing. Inside of the fish they caught were enough coins for their crossing. The Lord had prepared to met these people's need before they prayed. Back at my machine the wrench fit perfectly! I was able to loosen the screw as planned and then I realized that the empty place that I thought was missing a screw was another place that needed to be tightened with the wrench. It took some working back and forth and fiddling but I was able to fix the serger in just a few minutes. It wasn't me though, many of the thoughts were not even my own. The Lord  helped me that day and sometime in the past allowed that little wrench to be right where I could find it when I needed it. Again like with my cell phone this was a little thing, insignificant in the long run, except for this:  I knew that the Lord was mindful of me and he loved me. I felt strengthened in my ability to handle bigger things.