Passport Prayer

On Tuesday after school, Lily lost a tooth as her teeth tugged at a fruit roll-up. Somehow, when she came in to tell me the exciting news, the tooth fairy in me was totally not paying attention. The next morning, Lily sat up and checked under her pillow, very disappointed. Before I could explain to her the reasons why the tooth fairy might have forgotton, Lily put the blame squarely on herself as she realized that she hadn't put it under her pillow~ she had fallen asleep on the couch during scriptures. When we put her up in her bed, she was half asleep and didn't remember. Phew! Lucky break for this bad tooth fairy! I then promptly set an alarm on my phone for 1 a.m.) So, later that night, Lily was getting ready for bed. She had guarded her tooth carefully most of day, except for when she dropped it somewhere in the house. But Corey was on his way out to the roller skating rink, so the tooth would have to wait. When they got back, she asked Corey to help her find it. "We should say a prayer." Corey had some work to do before bed, and was a little not excited to put effort into the impossible task of finding her tooth. But they prayed, so he had to try. He picked up a piece of broken cereal on the kitchen floor and tried to fashion it into a tooth shape. "Is this it?" Joseph was doing his homework in the other room, listening, and came in to help, also a bit skeptical that they were going to find it. But in a matter of minutes Lily had located it! Miracle of miracle! She went and put it under her pillow, and Joseph jokingly asked "Lily, you want to help me find my passport?"

Joseph's passport has been MIA since he got back from Chile last summer. He has been looking for it for several weeks - he needs to send his passport info to Chapman Music in preparation for his July jazz band tour to the British Isles. "You gotta find it soon or we need to hurry and apply for a new one" we've told him. Corey's helped him look, I've looked, but no passport. Joseph looks for it here and there most every day, looking in the same places over and over again. The rest of us had ours together as Corey kept them on our trip home from Brazil. But when Joseph got home from Chile, we were out of town with friends and his grandparents picked him up - Joseph was in charge of it, and rack his brain as he might, he could not remember where it was. But wow, Joseph thought, little Lily and her childlike faith can find her tiny tooth lost somewhere in the house. My passport is lost here too, and it's bigger than a tooth...  As he was looking for it again today, he asked her again more earnestly, "Hey Lily, can you pray to find my passport?" She agreed to help, but first she instructed him, "We need to go someplace quiet to pray." So they went into her room, where she said a prayer, and the hunt began once again. Joseph took her to our room to show her what a passport looked like. She started to look downstairs. Joseph was looking upstairs in all the same places. Seriously, TWO MINUTES LATER, we hear her cheerful little voice call out "Joseph! I found your passport!" All of us who had been listening, and aware of the ongoing investigation that has been happening, thought she was joking... "WHAT?!?!" We all gathered around Lily, who proudly displayed a passport, and inside was Joseph's picture. "WHAT?!?!? WHERE did you find it?!??" I have some family history files where the birth certificates and social security cards are kept for each of the kids - Joseph's passport was in there. HOW Lily knew that I even had those file is beyond me, must have been a revelation. Joseph was like "Oh yeah! I remember seeing that in there in January before getting my driver's license!!" (cause he got his birth certificate to bring along) Well, wow Lily, miracle of miracles again! We've got our own little brother of Jared here - maybe now we'll call her the sister of Joseph.

The requests immediately started coming in... Corey: "Lily, will you pray for my business?" Hyrum: "Lily! Pray to find the Wii remotes!" It was a really fun and great small miracle to behold, we were all very happy for Joseph, now you can go on tour! And thank you Lily for your childlike faith, and thanks to Heavenly Father for answering this child's prayer. Looks like the rest of us have some humility work to do at becoming like unto this little child. ;) Thanks for your good example, Lily!

In this painting, Lily could have been the model for that little girl in pink - looks just like her! (well, except for the missing teeth)