My
wife Cindy was crying as she called me from the bank where she worked. In
a panicking voice she said, "The
diamond has fallen out of my wedding ring and I don't know where it is!"
Finding that diamond would be like finding a needle in a haystack. She could
have lost it in our house, or in the restaurant where she had lunch, or
somewhere in the bank.
I
prayed, "Lord, you know where Cindy lost her diamond. Please show me where
it is." Immediately I felt prompted to go to the bank parking lot. The
first place I looked was inside our minivan. It wasn’t there. When I scanned the
parking lot, I saw what looked like a piece of glass laying in a crack in the
pavement. It was Cindy’s diamond!
I
snatched it up and ran into the bank yelling, "I found the
diamond!" Bank customers turned around, wondering why I was shouting.
Cindy burst into tears and came running out from behind her teller window. As
we embraced in the lobby, it looked like the ending of a romantic movie.
We
called our friends and told them how I found the diamond against all odds. Then
I finally understood the parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-9). The woman who had
lost a silver coin called her friends with joy after she found it. Sometimes we don’t realize something’s value
until we lose it—and then recover it.
The
diamond hadn’t increased in value, but our
perception of its worth had changed dramatically. I learned the secret of
thankfulness: the
value of something isn't determined by how much it appreciates, but by how
much it is appreciated.
If you want to enjoy life, you will need to reexamine
the value of what you have. You may have lost the appreciation for the things
you once desperately wanted!
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