You Lose Something, You Pray To Find It, You See It In Your Head: God’s Tool Box Part 2



Part 2? Well what happened to God’s Tool Box Part 1? That one, FYI, pertains to panoramic visions that seem to get handed out like taffy at a parade. You can read it here.

This tool box entry, though, is about visions you see in your head when you pray to find something that’s been lost. This, apparently, gets handed out slightly more than taffy at a parade. It gets handed out like… like… like casual Plato references by a college kid in his second week of Philosophy 101.

Or something.

It really does seem like a fairly common phenomenon. But maybe I just notice it because it happened to me. I haven’t ever published a personal experience on here before, but as I see this experience happen in other people’s lives too, I wanted to shine a light on it. It’s a dim light, mind you, as I’m pretty sure my entire readership is two Romani guys in southern Slovakia.

Getting back on track here - everyone builds their tower of testimony on their own, different, spiritual experiences. It seems we get a handful of big ones and billions of little ones. I consider this one of my big ones. I think about it almost every day:

When I was in 6th grade I had a book report due. It wasn’t a written report, it was a verbal one. I was supposed to stand up in front of the class holding the book and explaining what it was about. My chief problem here was that I hadn’t read the book. The morning of my turn came. I was going to leaf through it to get a basic idea of plot. I’d really procrastinated.

When I leisurely went to stuff the book into my backpack it was gone. The first inklings of panic began to set in. I looked everywhere I could think of and it had just vanished. I’d have to leave for school soon. I was running out of time. I had to stand in front of the class with that book and, other than the title, I still had no idea what it was about. The pressure mounted.

I thought to pray for help. I got on my knees in my attic bedroom and pled. As I knelt there I expected to see the image in my head – and then I did. It flashed in as clear as a Polaroid.

When I saw it in my head I still didn’t know exactly where it was, but I saw some clues. I could see it was kind of dark, so I knew it was under something. I could also see the carpet it was on. That carpet was only in three rooms in the house. The possible places had been vastly narrowed.

At this point let me emphasize that this was a brand new book. It had never been read and was in mint condition. No spinal creases, no dog-eared pages – it was straight off the bookstore bookshelf. It was new!

But curiously, in the image I saw, the paperback cover and the first few pages were kind of curled up – like someone was holding it with one hand while reading it. A paperback cover never closes the same after that. Again, this book had been absolutely untouched, so seeing the curled cover was very unexpected.

I went to the first room with that carpet – the living room. I looked under couches, TV stands – everything. It wasn’t there. I then went to my parents room – the second room with that carpet. I looked under their bed and dresser – again nothing.

I then went to the third and last room with that carpet. My book-hoarding sister’s room. I dropped down to my hands and knees, looked under the bed and there it was – cover curled up exactly as I had seen it in my head. My sister was an avid reader. She’d snaked the book without telling me.

And I’m so glad she did.

Do you know the story about Martin Harris dropping the pin in a pile of hay? The one where he tried to find it but couldn’t, and then asked Joseph Smith to use his seer stone to find it. Smith used the stone, found the needle without taking his face out of the hat, and Harris’ test was passed. I’d heard once that a Church critic said that couldn’t have happened, because God wouldn’t use his power on something so petty.

My experience tells me that there is no petty. If it strengthens a testimony He’ll do it. If it’s important to you it's important to Him.

Now for a long time I thought I was the only one lucky enough to have an experience like that. Then one day in sacrament meeting a representative from the High Counsel was speaking. A synopsis of what he said is:

When he was a kid he had a pocket knife. At some point he lost it so he prayed to find it. That night he had a dream. In his dream he was in his backyard and saw his knife stabbed into the trunk of a tree behind some hanging branches or vines.

When he awoke he ran outside to the tree and it was right where he’d been shown.

That is pretty similar, right? It kind of blew my mind when I first heard it, because like I said – I mistakenly thought I was the only one.

But I wasn’t.

After that knife/tree story, probably a few years after, I told my story in Gospel Principals. Afterwards a young mother in the class approached me to tell me it happened to her too. Her story, in gross summary, was as follows:

When she was in college she’d lost her keys. She’d looked everywhere and couldn’t find them. Completely stumped – she prayed and saw them, mentally, in one of her boots. She went over to look and there they were. They’d fallen off a shelf and into her shoe.

At this point I was really thinking that this experience must be pretty common. And it is.

Now, finally, a related story with a source I can actually cite. I found this one while I was researching for a previous blog post. This blog post. I love it because it is so detailed and obviously valued. It should be. It’s absolute proof that God exists. It’s from a Church News article published in 2016. It’s a story on a then-recently called General Authority Seventy named Elder Evan A. Schmutz:


“As an 8-year-old Cub Scout, Evan was preparing for the Scout Jamboree by selling tickets. Each ticket sold for $1 and he had worked hard to sell a total of 17 tickets. “I had a little white envelope that I kept the money in, and I was going to turn that in to the Cubmaster,” said Elder Schmutz.
“But when the day came to give the money to his Cubmaster, he couldn’t find the envelope. He panicked and ran aimlessly around the house, gripped with fear because he knew that if the money wasn’t found, he could never replace it. His mother, observing his distress, stopped him and asked what was the matter. Eight year-old Evan explained his seemingly hopeless predicament. “I felt horrible. I felt I had committed a grave error, and I was in deep trouble,” he said.
“After listening to her son’s anguished explanation, Evan’s mother asked, “Have you prayed about it?” The thought had not crossed his mind. But he turned and went to his bedroom and knelt in prayer. He had no sooner called upon his Heavenly Father and begun to explain his difficulties when a picture came into his mind showing him the exact location of the envelope.
““I could see it. It was at the bottom of the kitchen wastebasket.” He got up and ran to the kitchen, pulled the wastebasket from under the sink, and dumped its contents on the kitchen floor. There, at the very bottom, just as he had been shown, was the envelope.
“It was such a relief. But more, it was the beginning of testimony. “I learned firsthand from that experience that God lives. He is our Father, and He answers prayers. He loves us. He even listens to a little boy, and He can show us wonderful things.”” (https://www.lds.org/church/news/-elder-schmutz-lifetime-of-spiritual-experiences-testifies-god-lives-and-loves-us?lang=eng)
Now think about this for a second. God, sitting on His almighty throne, with all of creation swirling about Him, took the time to show this boy where an envelope full of seventeen dollars was. $17.00. 3 less than $20. Think about that. He took time out of his God-schedule to point a finger towards $17.00. Or towards a lost pocket knife. Or a relatively unimportant set of keys.
He took the time to help a procrastinator find a book that hadn't been read.
You may think none of these particular issues are worthy of such heavenly help. I’ve thought about that, pertaining to me at least, many times over the years. The only thing I can come up with is Isaiah 55:
Our ways would probably tell us God is too busy building another Jupiter to stop and help a lazy 6th grader find a book he should have read but didn’t. But God’s way, clearly, is to take the time to prove He exists. God’s way is to take the time to spark a testimony on an absolutely individual basis.
It’s interesting how in each of these instances – help was sought. Prayers were said before the experiences were given.
It’s a fascinating and apparently common tool in God’s tool box. Has it happened to you? I’d love to hear about it.
I really, really would.

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