The Lost Book

My friend Janae is seeing her daughter off to school when she does a foolish thing. She places a small book on the bumper of her Suv while she helps her daughter Sidney into a friend’s vehicle who is the designated driver for the car pool this day. Janae tells herself she will remember to retrieve the book before driving off. Of course she forgets.

It isn’t until Janae returns home that she remembers the little book. Naturally it is no longer on the bumper. This book had been her companion since she received it as a gift a week earlier. She drives back over the route she had traveled that morning but there is no evidence of the little book.

At noon I am at my hairdresser’s. While Lisa is doing my hair she tells me that her husband Joe came by her shop earlier and dropped off a book he had found in the middle of Bahia Vista Road. When he saw this book in the middle of the road he just pulled over. Before he could get to it, two cars had run over it.”

The battered book is a copy of Joyce Meyers, The Secret Power of Speaking God’s Word.

“Joe really got into the book,” Lisa said, “particularly the chapter on anger. He has been angry with God all these years since the accident so it was good for him to read about that. Then he noticed the handwriting inside the front cover, ‘To Janae from Wendy,’ and brought the book here.

You are a Christian woman Deb do you know a woman named Janae?”

“I know a Wendy and a Janae. They both go to my church.”

I called Wendy on her cell phone and yes she had given a copy of the book to Janae. Wendy called Janae who then called us at the shop to confirm that she had lost the book while driving that morning.

Lisa gave me the book to return to Janae. On my way I stopped by The Living Word book store and purchased a new copy of Meyer’s book.

Janae inscribed the new copy, thanking Joe for finding and returning hers. I added, “Joe: I know God wanted you to have this book.”

Deborah Smith
Sarasota, Fl.