Our three month-old daughter came home from the hospital in September of 1999.She was born in June weighing 2 pounds 3 ounces and spent the next 93 days under special care. She had now doubled her weight, and they put her in my arms attached to oxygen, weighing 4 pounds 6 ounces and said, “Here, she can go home with you now.”
During one of her first few weeks home, while I was feeding her, I accidentally scratched her with the marquis diamond of my engagement ring. It broke my heart to hurt my teeny girl. I took the ring off and decided to keep it off until after she was weaned.
A few weeks later, however, John and I were getting dressed up for a date night out without the children. I wanted to put my ring back on, but sadly, I could not find it. I grumbled about it throughout the night, but John, the eternal optimist, assured me we would find it. For days we looked, but we never discovered it. I tried to remind myself that it was a material posession and that I should continue to be thankful that the amazing man who gave me the ring, loved me with an undying love. The ring was gone, but our love and marriage endured.
Several months later we moved from our country home and were heading to the suburbs. Friends from everywhere came to help us. I rallied the team that was working in the master bedroom suite. I told them my story about the ring and asked everyone to look for the ring as they packed and moved and cleaned. The truck was packed,the vacuuming finished, and the door closed. The ring had not been found.
The next day John and I returned to the house for a final walk through. I returned to the master bedroom suite, opened the door, and there in the middle of the floor of the library, on the top of the variegated plush carpeting was my ring. I squealed, I leapt, I cried. I was so thankful to find it. I really had missed the ring. John came running and he rejoiced with me. We prayed and thanked God. When I saw the ring it was if God were saying, “Here you go. I have been holding onto this for you. And I am holding onto you as you make this move. Christine, I know you were unsure about this move, but I am with you and I bless you on this new season of your family’s adventure.”
If that wasn’t amazing enough, God used this ring to remind me of his tender mercy toward me again, about four years later. We were in the middle of what I believed to be one of the most difficult seasons of our lives. We had pursued a dream of owning our own business. We owned and operated three coffee shops in Western New York. Financial pressure caused us to close one shop and then a second. The flagship store remained open, but seemingly by a thread. The potential financial hardship seemed unbearable to me.
God brought a new friend into my life during this time. This friend regularly spoke truthfully to me. Granted, her words were not always very comforting, but they were true. She quoted Bible verses such as, “You are pressed down, but not crushed.” I believe God and I believed God’s word so I had to concede that this was true. But I whined and argued that whatever the single last increment there was in the range of pressed down before you get to crushed, whatever that last increment was, that is where I felt I was.
I began to see a pattern in our conversations. My friend did not seem particularly interested in hearing all of the specific details of my circumstances. She was gracious of course, but she always wanted to talk about God and God’s work in my life. She wanted to discuss the truths about who God is and how He acts. She pointed to the truth of scripture which showed that God does not always rescue us from painful experiences. She would even point me to the martyrs. She repeatedly reminded me that, “God sees you” and “God is for you.”
I would get off of the phone after talking with this friend and mutter, “If God sees me why doesn’t he fix things? He could bring more customers into our shop in spite of our limited advertising budget. He has the power to bless this effort supernaturally in spite of our inadequacies and mistakes. He sees me, indeed.” But I knew it was true.
One afternoon my friend and I sat quietly for a few minutes, then she asked, “Can you tell me about your engagement ring?” I wasn’t quite sure why she asked or what I was supposed to say. I told her our engagement story and how I was surprised to find the ring in my dessert at the close of a fancy dinner out with John.
And then it hit me, my ring! Oh, my, the ring! I quickly retold the story of my ring and the old country farm house. And I wept. This friend had only known me a short time. She had no way of knowing about the ring story. She believed that it was God who prompted her to ask me about the ring. God sees me. He saw me in my pain and spoke to my friend and He reached down and reminded me once again that He sees me, He loves me. He has not lost track of me or my family. God comforted me.
The last shop closed in 2004 and it was a sad, painful time. We continue to recover from the financial impact of that journey. But God sees me and our family together, still seeking and serving our Savior. And any time I need a reminder that “God sees me” and that “God is on my side,” I put on my engagement ring and wear it without the wedding band for a day. It sets up there on my finger as a reminder of how God set it up on top of that rug and said, “Here you go. I have been holding onto this for you. And I am holding onto you. I see you, Christine, and I am for you.”
Christine Bradford
Sarasota
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