I talked to Jesús

I recently had a conversation with Jesús.  And he's from Guatemala.

Several weeks ago, I was sitting in a room at work preparing for a meeting when I unconsciously twisted my wedding ring around my finger with my other hand...only to feel no wedding ring.  I gasped and a couple of my co-workers immediately dropped to the floor searching for my ring.  It was no where to be found.  I retraced my day in my mind and felt certain that I had lost my ring in a particular bathroom after washing my hands.

Although I've plateaued for some time now, I lost 45 pounds over the past year.  (I have 20 more to go and am having trouble losing it...so I'm open to any suggestions.)  With that weight loss also came a shrinking of my fingers.  And recently, I had noticed while drying my hands with a paper towel, I would pull the ring right off.  Once I had caught it after I had thrown it into the trash.  It seems that this time, I had not even noticed.

So I rushed down to the bathroom and began searching through the trash.  I know...gross.  But this was my wedding ring.  While rummaging through the trash, someone mentioned to me that the janitor crew had emptied the trash several hours ago.  So I called our administrative services to confirm when trash is emptied.  I had been in the bathroom around 12:30.  The trash was removed at 1PM.

I was given Andy's information as a contact for the trash collection.  I called him and he laughed when I told him what I thought had happened.  Andy said there's no way I'd find it.  I told him I had to at least try and he met me 5 minutes later.  Below the complex where I work, I jumped on his cart and we drove through some tunnels to find the group of janitors so he could specifically identify where the trash from that bathroom might be.  There were nine buildings and who really tracks if trash from building x goes to trash room y?!?  Fortunately, the janitor who emptied that particular bathroom knew where he put it.  

The trash room of building J.

So Andy drove me over to that area, opened the trash room door, explained what kind of bags I could eliminate and which ones I should focus on.  He handed me some rubber gloves and said good luck.

Good luck.  This was a trash room that collected all the garbage from 3 buildings, each 4 stories high with a basement.  There were a lot of trash bags.  But I was determined to search each one.  After all, this was my wedding ring.

The smells were extremely unpleasant.  Liquids seeped out of many of the bags.  And I was overwhelmed.  Then a young man walked through the door.  He had been asked to help me until he left for the day.

I said a prayer that we would find the ring.  Did I mention this was my wedding ring?  Of all the prayers Heavenly Father would answer concerning a lost item, surely a wedding ring was at the top of the list.  I knew Heavenly Father knew where my ring was.  And I knew He could help me find it among the many trash bags piled to the ceiling.

I prayed several times.  I mentioned to Heavenly Father how diligent I was searching...how I was willing to go through all the smelly, disgusting trash in order to prove my dedication.  Prayers are answered through action...and I was acting.  I was willing to put forth an honest effort.  And there was a young man here helping me.  Surely he deserved the satisfaction of finding my wedding ring?  Faith would be strengthened.  A miracle would be witnessed and shared with the entire janitor crew.

But no ring.  We searched every single bag.  Took out every item from each bag and put it back into the bag.  It was never found.

But I got to talk to Jesús.  He was the young man who came to help.  He wasn't paid anything extra to go through this trash with me.  But he helped me with a smile on his face.  And we had a good chat.  Since then, I see Jesús more often in the hallways.  I hadn't noticed him before.  But now that we've met, we see each other often.  We talk about his family in Guatemala.  We talk about my family here and my experiences in Venezuela.  It's interesting how, now that we've been connected, we run into each other...supposedly having passed each other unaware countless times previously.

It's interesting how prayers are answered.  The ring is lost...but I found Jesús (or perhaps it is better stated that Jesús found me).  And I'm grateful for the experience and lesson learned.