It was a snowy afternoon in New York City, and once again I was almost late for a meeting at Marble Collegiate Church; it didn’t help that I was scheduled to chair. So, of course, I took a taxi. Destination reached, I paid the driver and headed into the meeting. All went well, until I reached for my wallet just before leaving, and it wasn’t there. A colleague helped me search the area where we had been meeting and the space just outside; no dice. It was nowhere to be found. Back home, I called the church to check whether anything had been turned in and the gentleman who had helped me search was at the desk. He told me his own story of a similar loss and shared how he had immediately begun to pray, working to put the entire situation in God’s hands. I wasn’t in the mood at that moment, but I did listen and heard the trust and faith in his voice, as he finished the story, where in the most unlikely of circumstances, he was able to reclaim his lost article. His story stayed with me, as a gentle reminder.
in addition to closing all my cards, I started the laborious process of reporting the loss. I resisted briefly, embarrassed at my own absent-mindedness, but there was nothing to do but to take the first step. So, I called 311, the help line for all things municipal and went through the slow and painstaking process of making the report. It seemed to take forever. But the next afternoon, there was a message from the Taxi and Limousine Commission asking me to call them to answer more questions. It all seemed so useless, but I called and answered still more questions always with more info to pin point time, location et al. Later that day, I got an email back that included license numbers and cell numbers of two possible drivers. It all seemed so unlikely to me, but I did pick the driver whose name was a probable match for the nationality I had intuited, called and left a message that was as specific, detailed and nonthreatening/accusatory as possible. I never got a call back. So, I surrendered, and went on with my life.
Several days later, my friend from the church asked about the wallet. “Nope, nada,” I said. He had a lovely response suggesting that if it was needed by someone else God could be trusted to make that happen. I actually took comfort in that and felt that I had surrendered. Wallet shopping ensued, and then last night, as I was getting on the elevator and the door was closing, I heard the intercom go off in my apartment down the hall. I stopped at the desk to find out what was up. The door person said “Someone left this for you; put out your hand.” He placed the wallet into my hand. All money and all cards perfectly intact. So 9 days after I left the phone message, the wallet was returned.
To me this was a City Trail experience. I had to take each little step; and even though I wasn’t exactly in a prayerful frame of mind about the incident, I was graced with the willingness to listen to someone who was, so prayer partnering was there for me, even though my heart was only open a crack. And then a Christmas surprise was handed to me. So I want to remember to bring prayer into the daily routines of my life, not to get a certain outcome, but to open myself to God’s being a part of the process. If I stay open and true to that idea, I might be available to help the next traveler I meet who is walking through a tough or lonely trail journey.
Shared by Karen Gourgey
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