A Little Miracle

As practice ended, I looked down and realized that the key to my classroom had fallen off my makeshift key chain. But when had it happened? I had just raced the players in from midfield, and it could have easily fallen off while I was sprinting. But, it could have just as easily fallen off while we were playing keep away, or even while I was taking attendance while the guys put on their cleats and shin guards. So, as Coach Bowden talked to the team, I began looking along the path I had just run, hoping that I could find it and avoid the embarrassment of asking for help looking for my key. I didn’t find it, so I asked the players and coaches if they would help me scour the field. We looked together, but didn’t find anything. I eventually thanked them for their help and said that I didn’t think it was worth it any longer to keep looking--it could have been buried under some dirt, or it might have fallen off even before I got to the field.

I hauled the soccer bags back to my room, scanning the ground as closely as possible as I tried to retrace my steps. Nothing. I asked a janitor to unlock my room so I could stash the equipment there, grabbed my backpack and walked back to the field, again searching for a dropped key anywhere along the path.

From the moment I realized it was missing, I had begun to offer up silent prayers that I would find the key. “Please help me find this.” “Help me to know where I can look to find the key.” “I would really like to find this key.” As I stepped onto the field once again, I crouched down (I didn’t kneel) and more conscientiously prayed. “Father, it would be very convenient if I can find this key. It will be okay if I don’t--I know that the school will be able to make a copy--but I would like to avoid that, if possible. I need to leave at 5:30 in order to get back home and finish everything I need to do before my class starts at UNLV tonight, so I will keep looking until then. If it’s here, and if it’s according to thy will, please help me to find the key within that time.” It was 5:22.

I walked back and forth along the field, hoping that the long shadows or the dusk-light would allow me to see the shape or glint of my bronze-colored key. Still, I found nothing. As I retraced once again my steps near where the players had put on their soccer equipment, a wiry lady with grayed light-brown hair approached me, walking her dog (some kind of dachshund mix, I think).

She said, “This is Blueberry--I guess she wants to meet you.”
“Well hello,” I said.
“Blueberry only likes to meet good people, so I guess you’re a good person.”
I smiled. “So, do you live around here?”
“Yeah, I’m staying with my daughter over there,” she indicated.
“Okay. I teach here, and I’m looking for a key I dropped somewhere.”
She immediately bent down and picked up a key. “Is this it?”
“Uh, yes, that is.” I paused, rather taken aback, then said, “That was a miracle.”
She replied, “Well, everything happens for a reason.”
I nodded and said, “I believe that too.”

I thanked her and she walked away. I took out my phone to check the time. It was 5:29.

I was not looking for a sign of God’s existence, nor was I particularly worried about what would happen if I did not find the key. As I said in my prayer, this was simply something that would be convenient for me at this time. But it was beautiful to glimpse God’s hand in my life and to feel the presence of a Father who is intimately aware of me, even in an obscure, dusty field in Las Vegas, and who places people (and dachshund mixes) in my path to bless me.

I smiled and laughed to myself as I walked to my car. When I sat in the driver’s seat, I said a brief prayer of gratitude, and began to drive home.

After a few moments of basking in that experience, I began to wonder if I should have said anything more to that lady--to thank her once again, or to explain to her how she had been an answer to a prayer. I thought that, in the future, I would be more open about sharing those details with people like that lady.

I was leaving the school parking lot as I thought about this, and looking ahead, realized that I would probably drive past her. I prepared to roll down my window and talk with her again, but there was a car in front of me, and she crossed the relatively busy street before I reached her. As I drove away, I saw her light a cigar and begin to smoke.

I could have done more to share with her something of the sacredness of that experience, and to rejoice with her in God’s goodness and grace. I don’t know what might have come of it, but I do believe that God was able to use a lady who smokes cigars and lives with her daughter in an impoverished neighborhood of Las Vegas to help me find my key.