Two days after our wedding, we arrived at our honeymoon spot - cottages on the
northern California coastline with their own private beach. We went down the
cliff path to the beach and tossed a frisbee back and forth for a while, but
since it was late in the day, my wife asked if we could go back and make
ourselves some dinner. Towards the end of dinner my wife took a look at my left
hand and asked "Where's your wedding ring?" It was gone and I felt that wave of
emotion go up and down my body. "It must have come off when we were throwing the
frisbee." We hurried down to the beach.
As soon as we got to the beach we had our little prayer meeting: "GOD, please
help us to find the ring." We knew exactly where we had been and got to work. We
divided the whole area into squares and began our systematic search. Soon it was
too dark to continue, so we went back to our cottage deflated. Next morning we
rose early and continued our search, but didn't find the ring. Needless to say,
my wife was very unhappy, and I encouraged her to forget about it and try to
enjoy our trip.
We spent the next three days on various activities, and on the fourth day I
suggested we go back down to the beach. As we climbed down the stairs I could
tell my wife was intending to start searching again. I told her to let go of it,
she said no way. As soon as we got to the beach she started searching again, but
something happened to the beach since we were last there. A high tide had
completely washed over the whole beach and, right where we had been throwing the
frisbee, someone had been spinning circles in the sand with a 4-wheel drive
vehicle. I told my wife it was hopeless. She ignored me and went down by the
waters edge to search. I sat down cross-legged on the beach and cried out to GOD
several times: "Please help her to face reality." As I said that the last time,
I bowed my head and there, up on top of a mound of sand, right between my legs,
was my ring. I remember crying out loud "LORD, forgive me" as I flung myself
down on the sand. My wife came running over, having no idea what was wrong, and
when she found out, we both praised our GOD. We wrote the whole story in the
sand so everyone going there that day would see that GOD really does answer
prayer.
Chris Geary cgeary@mail.arc.nasa.gov
© 2001. Permission is granted to reprint this story.
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