The Ticket

Once again, I have been reminded of how much I am loved by my Heavenly Father. He never quits proving His love to me over and over.

Last evening, I drove up to Madison with a friend who had invited me to see Bob Goff. (If you don't know him, look him up!)  I had taken the ticket when we entered, I read the ticket, it said, "Keep your ticket with you." I of course didn't quite understand why I couldn't leave it in the car, but if you know me, I pretty much follow the rules in most everything I do. So, I took the ticket and did something with it.  I thought I stuck it in my purse, but I was paying little attention to what I had done with the ticket.  We got to the venue and Jan reminded me that we had to have our parking ticket in order to get out of the structure. I kind of thought about it, looked quickly in where I figured I had put it. Nope, not there. Oh well, probably in the car.

We finished the first session, which, I am saying, if you haven't heard Bob or read his stuff, you need to. At dinner, I was going to search for the ticket. We ate, never gave it another thought until we were seated waiting for the next session and Jan said, "Empty out your purse and find the ticket." So, I emptied my purse. No ticket. We had stopped at the car on the way to dinner and hadn't noticed it in the car either.

After the event, we went to the car. I was most confident that the ticket would be in my cup holder where I had picked up my phone as we were getting out. Pretty sure that I had just not really examined the area on the way to dinner. Still feeling pretty unshaken by the potential loss of the ticket, we moved on to the car. We looked, not there, we looked again, all around the car, under the car, in the car. Not there. Pocket check for the 10th time, not there. OH!!! I don't do this kind of thing, what is up?

Jan went over to the kiosk to find out what to do if you have a lost ticket. I just kept looking, willing it to appear in the car. But, out loud I said, "God, we really need to have that ticket."(He knew that, I didn't know how badly we did!) Jan returned to the car to tell me that she found out in order to get out of the structure without a ticket, it cost $75. $75???? What!?!?

A discussion started, rationalizing that $75 would be the price of a good dinner, which we had gone cheap on earlier...

"What if were just go see if by chance someone turned it in?" Jan suggested. Knowing that price, I was willing. So, we started walking back to the venue.

About 30 feet from the car, Jan says, "Oh look, there's a ticket on the ground!" She picked it up and it was time stamped 2:55pm. That was the time we had arrived. It was clearly our ticket. (She wouldn't let me touch it!)

So, we paid the regular fee, got our ticket validated, and drove on home. Once again, I realized how much God loves me. How much there is truth in the statement that "not a sparrow" (or a parking garage ticket) falls to the ground but that He sees it and cares? How much more does He care about the things I count as big in my life, like my future, my purpose, my well-being? Once more, He showed me and once more I learned a lesson on leaning on Him.