I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden riches of secret places, That you may know that I, the Lord, Who call you by your name, Am the God of Israel. (Isaiah 45:3 NKJV)
A Child of the King
Before taking the youngest three grandactives to the playground a few weeks ago, I suggested Sydney leave her mood ring on our kitchen table. She assured me it stayed on her finger. So I didn’t press the issue. The kiddos played for a couple of hours on the swings, the teetertotters, bouncy animals, and the jungle gym. Finally, they decided they needed something to drink, and we headed home. Sydney looked a bit moody. I questioned her.
“Eli lost my ring.”
“What was Eli doing with it?”
“We were playing a game. I gave it to him. He put it in his pocket. It fell out.”
We took the other two grandactives home. Pap got them drinks, while Sydney and I headed back to the playground. I told Sydney to pray that Jesus would help us find her ring in the wood chips that covered the entire playground—yeah, finding a needle in a haystack.
We searched the ground below the swings. Sydney climbed through the tunnels in the jungle gym. I scanned the ground beneath the jungle gym. We looked around the teetertotters and the bouncy animals. No ring. Sydney went back to the swings to search again since that’s where Eli had hung upside down. I paused by the slide and whispered another prayer.
“Lord, please show us where that ring is. It sure would mean a lot to this child…and to that one.”
I reached for a glittering object. My hear sank when I realized it was a wrapper off a pack of cigarettes. “Why can I see things like that and not the ring?” I turned, searching. Another object sparkled in the sun at the bottom of the slide. I picked it up and twirled it between my fingers then raise my hand.
“Sydney, look what I found!”
She ran to me. I gently pushed her ring on her finger. She sobbed as I said, “See how much God loves you.”
We never would have found that ring without the Lord’s help. He knew exactly where it was. But finding the ring wasn’t the important thing that day. Sydney found a treasure I pray she never forgets—God loves her and wants to show her priceless treasures that last for life.
When we go through cancer, it may feel as though we’ve lost something very important to us. Our hopes may dwindle with our health. But God wants to restore our sense of wellbeing. He has promised to give us treasures in dark places. We have to enter those places to find the treasures, just like Sydney and I had to return to the playground to find her ring.
We could have prayed all night and day for two weeks and never would’ve found it if we hadn’t gone looking for it.
God desires to help us, to comfort us, and to restore what we’ve lost through cancer. But we have to do our part. We have to seek the treasures He has for us. They may not be what we think we’re looking for. They may be treasures of far greater value than health. They may be treasures for eternity.
How about you? What has God helped you find?
See you in a twinkling,
Brenda K. Hendricks.
Encouraging Today's Christian 
When I lost my dad 11 years ago, I not only lost a beloved father, but my sense of security, my joy of life, and a tiny part of my faith in God. Gradually, the grieving lifted enough to see that joy and faith had never left, just got pushed aside as my soul needed the time to heal. The sense of security, of feeling protected and cherished, took much longer. I “found” it again in the pages of a little book Patti Souder gave me a year after his death. She’d chosen it from the gift books sent to Montrose by Blue Mountain Arts as a thank you gift for my acting as hostess for the week. When I opened it, I found a book of poems written by Donna Fargo, a country music singer both my dad and I adored. At home, I began reading through it on a day when I thought the grief would overwhelm me. Through my tears, I read poems which the Holy Spirit put there for me to read – poems I felt could have been written by my dad for me, poems of gratefulness, poems for strength, poems of prayers for protection, poems of faith and a belief in me and my possibilities, poems of a father cherishing his daughter … a Father cherishing His daughter. I thanked God right then and Patti the next year at Montrose. I often return to those poems to reconnect to my dad through heaven.
A beautiful story. Thanks for sharing, Cathy.