"indeed she is truly my sister"
Genesis 20:12
I read a great story today. And it was made even more enjoyable by the fact that I pretty much lived the story yesterday.
What I read was my sister's blog. She does a blog about the joys and trials of raising an autistic child, and she said an event that took place over the weekend. You can read it here.
In a nutshell, what happened was that through a slight mistake on my brother-in-law's part, and a slight mistake on my sister's part, she and her son got lost trying to find their way to a specific place in the mountains, where they were to meet her husband.
She tried for a good long while to fight her way through the marital miscommunication that got her into that situation, but then she was ready to give up. Her cell phone was useless in the remote area, she had tried several things to find him, and was tired and out of ideas.
But her son encouraged her to keep trying. He was earnest and supportive, so she kept going, and a short while later they found their destination. It's a great story. But she tells it better, truth be told.
Now, my similar story took place at the DMV yesterday. I shared a little bit of that joy yesterday. And I alluded to the fact that we had a little trouble with my daughter's social security number, during which the DMV agent was very pleasant and helpful. But here are the details:
When we left the house to go to the DMV, I could not find my daughter's social security card. I looked in several logical places, but a few months ago we had decided to find a new location for it, and of course I now rue that decision. The kids helped me look, and I called my husband at work to ask him, and we all prayed, but still no luck.
But that was okay, because we only needed the number, not the card. I don't have it memorized, but my husband had it written down in his wallet, so he read it off to me. But when I got to the DMV, and the lovely lady tried to verify it, it didn't work. She typed it in several times, and clarified my daughter's name and birthdate, but it wasn't coming up on the computer.
So I called my husband, and read back the number he had given me. Yup. That's the number he had. Now what? I didn't want to waste the two hours we had spent waiting for our turn, so I called my parents on the off chance they had some record of my kids' social security numbers, and lo and behold, they did! So my father gave me my daughter's number, which differed from the number my husband had. So yay! Problem solved!
I went back to the window and gave the woman the number and would you believe? It was wrong! I was stunned. The woman was so sympathetic, and she's sitting there with all these numbers on pieces of paper that I had given her.
When all of a sudden...
Now ~ before I tell you the sudden inspiration, I'll give you a visual.
Here's my daughter's SSN: 123-45-6789
Here's what my hubby told me: 123-45-6798
Here's what my father told me: 123-19-6789
Can you believe they both had it written down wrong? What are the odds?
But here's the inspiration: My dad had the middle two numbers wrong, and somehow seeing it written that way, I knew those two numbers were wrong. Somehow, looking at my daughter's number enough times over the years, I guess there was some familiarity, and I knew my husband had that much of the number right. I knew I had a light bulb over my head at that point, and I said to the agent: "Try this..." and I read off the first five numbers of my husband's version with the last four numbers of my dad's version. And it worked.
I was the one who figured it out, miraculously, but only with the prompts I had from my hubby and my dad. They gave me what I needed to make it happen.
Same with my sister. She was ready to give up on finding her destination, and just go home. My nephew insisted they keep trying, and he looked out the window with her and tried to help identify the landmarks they needed. My sister figured it out, miraculously, but only with the persevering encouragement of my nephew.
Sweet, funny, wonderful reminders that God gives us what we need, in some pretty unexpected ways...
~ "Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot,
you shall have help." ~
1 Samuel 11:9
~
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