Those of you that read my blog will, no doubt, be thinking by the end of this post, “Gee, those Mulligans sure do lose a lot of stuff at their house.” – and we do! At the risk of having you totally question my housekeeping skills, however, I must praise the Lord about yet another little “Lost & Found Incident”. Caleb’s stuffed giraffe, Longly, has been missing for over a week. Longly’s ten year-old, rightful owner has taken it like a champ. His rightful owner’s Mommy has not. I reorganized Caleb’s bedroom, cleaned up (and out!) the toy room, searched Keppley’s room, texted Mema, Granna, Papa and Aunt Sarah. AND made Daddy PROMISE me that he had really, really double-checked his Jeep. I also re-searched the Suburban… just in case my sleuthing skills were slipping. I searched and looked and pondered and questioned where in the world this floppy, infant-sized stuffed animal could be: the one I bought for my first-born that very first time I left the house after his birth, when he was just 3 days old? (Can you feel the stress, Fellow Mommas?) All the while, I kept thinking, “Bet he got folded up in Caleb’s sleeping bag.” You need to know that by “kept thinking”, I really mean: repeatedly, obsessively thought, over and over again, as I was driving down the street, doing the laundry, cleaning the toy room, praying about the day and this one little stressor, THOUGHT, “I really should look in his sleeping bag.” But I never did… until this morning.
Finally, today after swim practice, I looked. And guess what: he was there… right where the Holy Spirit had been telling me he was. Kep walked into the room as I was fighting with the sleeping bag zipper. She offered to crawl in to look for Longly herself, but I, of course, insisted that it needed to be fixed anyway. She stood there looking anxiously with me at the sleeping bag as I finally opened it to reveal our missing Longly! I told her my story: the one about how God told me several times to look in Caleb’s sleeping bag while I was praying about Longly; the one where I, for some reason, kept putting it off. Do you know what she said? She said, “Mom! The Holy Spirit was talking to you!” Yep… He really was, Kep.
When asked what the lesson of this tale and trial was, both of my kids responded in kind: “when the Holy Spirit (or anybody in authority over you, added Caleb!) tells you to do something, DO IT!” Amen Kiddos! Way to pick up that lesson your Momma is clearly still learning! Thanks again, God, for caring about those little things that truly don’t mean anything to anyone but me! You’re quite awesome!
Longly with his sleeping bag and his rightful owner.
Speechless Ministries 