Lessons Learned from a Lost ID

There was no doubt about it, I had lost my student ID. I’d already checked the pockets of my coat and jeans several times, looked in my wallet, and searched all the places I had been since the last time I remembered feeling the familiar plastic rectangle in the right pocket of my coat. I was not too happy. This was my second ID since starting college, and I really didn’t want to pay another $20 fee to get a new one. Granted, $20 is not a fortune, and I was blessed enough to have a twenty dollar bill in my wallet at the time, but I really did not want to waste it on another ID card. As I walked toward my next class, I prayed that somehow, I would find it, or that someone would return it to me. I’ve prayed for lost things ever since I was a little kid, scrambling to find a lost shoe right before leaving for church. Praying when I’ve lost something has really become a tradition for me. But even as I prayed that I’d find my ID, I was already thinking of ways that I might attempt to talk myself out of the fee when I went to request a new ID. After all, this ID was more than a year old, and it didn’t even have my married name on it, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince the college bureaucracy to give me a new one for free, should it? I briefly considered trying to make it through graduation without an ID—I only have 6 months to go, how often could I need to have an ID during that time? Unfortunately, college IDs are a very useful thing to have, both at my college and at all the restaurants and theaters that give me discounts when I whip out that little piece of plastic.

               I attended my Spanish class and practiced the subjunctive, and afterward I went straight to check my college email, as is my habit. Professors frequently email their classes at the very last minute and still expect their students to have studied and understood all of their emails by the time class begins. I had one unread email which read, “Hi Rachel, We have your ID waiting for you at the front desk across from the dining hall.”

                Standing in front of that computer, I suddenly remembered my quick prayer, the prayer of habit, and I was humbled. I prayed that I would be able to find my ID, but I was too caught up in planning my own strategies of how to get a new one free of charge that I didn’t even actually have faith that God would answer my prayer. I’ve prayed prayers of faith before; I’ve seen God answer prayers in miraculous ways. And I still didn’t even have faith that He would answer my prayer about a lost ID. Yet He did.  Thank you God, for being faithful when I am faithless.