The Power of Prayer

Nothing is more aggravating than to be ready to walk out the door to go someplace and not be able to find your car keys. I'm usually pretty careful about putting them in the same place, because Dean doesn't like to see them just lying around. He's worried someone might steal them.

When I have forgotten his "rule" in the past, and left the keys in sight somewhere, he tends to put them "somewhere safe" for me. I thought I had him trained to put them in just one or two places in the spare bedroom, because he's been known to hide them a little too well, and with his short term memory deficits...well, you can just imagine the chaos that results from that situation.

Once again, chaos erupted the other day though when my keys turned up missing. I knew it must have been my in-house key thief, aka Dean, because I remembered opening the front door with the keys just the night before and laying them on the dining room table while I put my typical armloads of items away.

Dean half-remembered putting the keys somewhere again, and I was getting more and more anxious about his hiding place the longer we searched for them. My granddaughters and I were getting ready to go out on some errand--not an urgent one, mind you, but I knew later I would need to take these girls home or watch them multiple hours longer till their mom got off work, if we didn't find them.

After looking in every conceivable place in the house both Dean and I could think of, I went to my granddaughters and told them to say a prayer to find them and to keep an eye out for the runaway keys. They both prayed and helped us look for awhile, but after a short time they went back to their dolls, and I went into the kitchen to put some clean dishes away.

As I was putting the dishes away, the thought came into my head to look myself on top of the refrigerator. I saw Dean looking there as we were searching earlier. I have to get a stepstool in order to see up there myself, but as soon as I pulled the stool over and looked, there were the keys! They were just a little behind something, but certainly not out of sight. I don't know why Dean didn't see them when he looked earlier.

But then the answer came to me and I hurried to tell the girls that their prayers had been answered! And I'm sure it was. God obviously put that thought in my head, didn't He? And it was perfect timing for us all to have an object lesson about how God answers prayer.

What prayers has He answered for you today?

Food Hide-and-seek

I have become an expert at food hide-and-seek lately. With Thanksgiving last week and Dean's birthday celebration this past weekend, there are sweet treats hidden all over my house. I have to hide them from Dean, and I'm sure he's been hiding them from me so I don't hide them from him.

As a matter of fact, there is a can of mixed nuts in such a good hiding place that neither of us will find them for quite awhile. Dean, because he doesn't remember that he has them, and me, because I can't remember where I put them. They must be in a very secure location. Either that, or Dean has found them and finished them off. Like he did with the box of chocolate-covered cherries the other day.

This impulsivity or lack of self-control is a typical symptom of someone who is brain-injured or has dementia. It has resulted in some weight gain for Dean lately, as you might imagine. I even threatened to send him to a "fat farm" today, when he was complaining about my tight restraints on the food pantry. But probably we'll just end up readjusting his medicines at some point.

Do I complain about God's restraints sometimes too? I'm sure I do. It seems like He's hiding all the good things in my life in very secure locations, and leaving me without any of the luxuries that make life sweet. I must stop complaining and remember that God is doing it all for my best eternal interest. He's a caregiver I can really trust.