First, my sincerest apologies for the intermittent blog posts. It’s been extremely challenging to update the blog and even my Facebook as I don’t have a laptop. My thumb-drive also failed, I’ve been under the weather due to the high altitude here in Bolivia, and decent internet can be hard to come by in some of the places where we’ve been (e.g. up in the mountains of Lajas, D.R. and also in Llica, Bolivia, where we spent some time with Team Radical).
Please know that I’ve had several blogs stirring in my heart, and I have been handwriting them all down so that I don’t forget them. Here’s the first one, which is as actually part of a series I had been working on before coming on the World Race. The series is called Every Day Miracles, and this particular blog post is Miracle #5: We Can Ask God for Anything. We’ll have to rewind to 2012 for this one.
At that time, back in 2012, I was planning a trip to Svalbard, Norway. If you don’t know where Svalbard is, just find a map and point to the northernmost point of Norway…then take your finger and move it about a thousand miles NORTH, waaaaay into the Arctic Circle. See that archipelago that almost looks like the shape of a wide Indian arrowhead? That’s Svalbard.
My friends who know me (and who know how much I can’t stand the cold) are laughing right now and saying things like, “Ohhh Kay, Kay, Kay…what were you thinking!” And they would be right! I mean, I needed thermal socks and pants for evenings in the Caribbean, for crying out loud. How in the world would I have made it in Svalbard?
Anyhoo, so for some reason I had (at some point) thought this was a good idea, this trip to Svalbard, Norway. I had everything I needed for the trip, all the arctic winter gear required to survive (erm, “survive”), including the above-mentioned thermal pants and socks, and also a (very expensive) pair of gloves that I paid way too much for considering I live in South Texas.
Long story short, I didn’t go on the trip after all and thus ended up not needing the gear. I did keep much of it, just in case any future travels arose where I might need warm clothes. As it turns out, some future travels did indeed arise (that would be the World Race, which I’m on right now), and I figured the gloves would be particularly useful for some of the places we were going. And boy, was I pumped that I had already bought those gloves beforehand. “One less expense for me!” I had said when I was hashing out what clothes I would bring on this 11-month journey.
My squad was set to launch January 9, 2014, and the weeks leading up to Launch were especially cold – more so than I’m accustomed to being from San Antonio – and I ended up wearing the gloves pretty regularly, especially during the morning and evening commutes to work. One day, on a particularly chilly morning, I realized one of the gloves was missing. I looked everywhere for it: in my car, at work, at my mom’s apartment…every day, several times per day, I went on wild goose chases for that thing, leaving no stone unturned amidst the process. It was all to no avail. The glove was gone. Simple as that.
What a waste, I thought, beyond frustrated over the situation. I’d never owned a pair of gloves worth more than $5 or $6, and for this very reason! I always seemed to lose one – not both, just one (which, in all honesty, makes such situations all the more frustrating, regardless of how much the gloves cost).
Needless to say, I was disheartened over this particular missing glove. I had the World Race coming up and already tons of expenses and fundraising to contend with; but, I mean, what was I going to do? I needed a good pair of gloves, and I almost broke down and bought a pair…but then I remembered something my friend John told me. He said he had been looking for his keys one day, couldn’t find them, was late – he started to get frustrated, but then he stopped and prayed. And guess what? He found them right away!
Because we can ask God for anything.
In the Book of John (John the Disciple, not my friend John 
), Jesus says: “I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and He will grant your request because you use my name . . . . Ask using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy”(John 16:23-24). This lines up with one of my favorite books in the Bible, the Book of Matthew, where Jesus says: “Keep on asking, and you will receive. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
Was helping me find a lost glove too complex of a task for the God who spoke the world into existence? Was it too menial for the God who loves us so much that He came down to us from His royal throne in Heaven – an unimaginably beautiful place where pain and tears and hurt don’t even exist – allowed us to persecute and mock Him, took the sins of the world upon Himself, then died a horribly painful death so that He could be the ultimate and final Sacrifice and so that we (the very people who persecuted Him) would have a chance to be with Him in the aforementioned unimaginably beautiful place called Heaven, where pain and tears and hurt don’t exist? Was finding this glove too far “below” that God, or was I just being prideful in my resistance to ask?
Soooo….why not? Why not ask, using His name, just as He tells us to do in the Book of John?
And so I did. Every day, for over a week, I prayed intentionally and fervently about that glove. I felt silly at first, asking so earnestly for a Jesus to commission His mighty servants the angels to…what? Form a search party to locate my missing glove that I could replace with just a quick trip to REI?
Pretty much. That’s pretty much exactly what I prayed for Him to do. I did it wholeheartedly, too, praying with the unshakeable belief that He was going to answer that prayer, that nothing was beyond Him and that He wanted to help me find the glove. He commands His angels concerning us (Psalm 91:11?), and I vividly imagined His mighty servants scouring all of San Antonio for that glove until finally it was found and then delivered back to me.
Well, it wasn’t happening exactly as I had hoped. And after that first week, I kept praying, but it was more intermittent. I also bought another pair of gloves (a cheap-o $5 pair) to get me by through the blisteringly cold mornings. I wasn’t all that disheartened that the glove hadn’t shown back up, figuring God is sovereign (meaning He does what He wants, when He wants) and that He probably had some lesson for me to learn over the issue. I was still praying for Him to return the glove, but it was no longer with the expectation that He was going to bring it back to me.
Then one morning at work, after I’d clocked in and was about to head upstairs, I decided to take the elevator instead of the stairs. I almost always take the stairs, but I was feeling kind of sluggish that morning. So I walked over to the elevator, and as I passed by the Service Desk, I noticed something black and lumpy sitting on the counter.
I did a double-take. Eyes wide, jaw slack, I scooped up my missing glove and held it high in the air. “Who found this?!” I demanded, voice shrill from shock. “Who found this glove?!”
“Kaeley found it.”
I spun to see the sales manager, Melissa, standing in front of the elevator.
“Where did she find it? And when?” I asked, still dumbfounded that the glove had appeared. I had looked everywhere for that thing. EVERYWHERE. How in the world had our executive assistant managed to find it?
“I think she found it yesterday afternoon,” Melissa said, seemingly puzzled. “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her.”
Ohh, I was definitely going to ask her. I had to know how she came across that glove. When I cornered her later that morning, she repeated the same basic explanation Melissa had given me: “I found it yesterday afternoon when I was coming out of work.” It was only after my being insistent on where and how she came across it that my mind was totally blown: “It was sitting on my car,” she explained.
“HUH?” If my jaw had been slack before, it was now hanging down by my knees.
“Yeah, it was just sitting on my car.” She shrugged. “I figured it was one of the tech’s gloves, that maybe it fell in the parking lot and that someone picked it up and put it on my car. I don’t know why, but I was thinking it belonged to Mike.”
Mike´s glove. In the parking lot. Someone picked it up and put it…on Kaeley’s car? That didn’t make sense. If someone found one of the tech’s gloves, the logical thing to do would be to bring it inside (like Kaeley did) and put it on the Service counter – or at least give it to the Service manager. That would be the logical. Who on earth would put it on Kaeley’s—
Ohhhhhhhh. My mind finally snapped to it: the prayers, the requests for Jesus to send His angels to find my glove and bring it back…He did it. I used His name, I prayed sincerely, and He did it.
Because we can ask God for anything.
I hope this and other blog posts from my Every Day Miracles series have been inspiring for you. I am still short about $2000 from my next fundraising deadline on April 1st, so I´m asking people to please pray about giving and becoming a part of this ministry. I´m in Bolivia right now, and my team needs me…I´m one of the biggest prayer warriors on the squad, I´ve been helping deliver and save people, and because our team is already the smallest on the squad (6 people) my teammates will be shorthanded if I´m gone. I´m needed here. Each of us is making a huge difference in the lives of others, but if I don´t raise the funds, I´ll have to go home at month´s end.
Please consider giving. It takes 30 seconds … just click $ PLEASE SUPPORT ME $ at the top of the page. Your gift is tax deductible and very much needed. God bless you.
Kimmy Kay
