The Found Umbrella

That chokes you, I know. But--but that's true. If you believe, all things are possible. You're afraid to take God, friends. You're scared. Now, I might've left that knife laying on the dresser where I changed clothes awhile ago. But just as sure if that knife is on the dresser right now, if I believe it with all my heart, it'll be in my pocket. That chokes you. But God is able to put it there if you believe it.

I came out of the door, and it was raining. It was pouring, in fact. I looked down at my laptop bag where I always kept my little black collapsible umbrella, and noticed in dismay that it was missing.

I’ve learned from experience that losing my umbrella is a very bad thing. More than once, I’ve emerged from the depths of the Midtown train station to find torrential sheets of rain blocking the way between me and my office building (a 10 minute walk away). And more than once the security guard as outright laughed at me as I came running into the parking garage, totally out of breath, looking like a drowned rat. “You’re gonna need a new shirt, Mister!”

Not fun. So I prayed a quick prayer to find my umbrella. As I turned my head in the garage, there behind me on the wall hung my wife’s pink umbrella. At that particular moment I couldn’t have cared less that it was pink; it was an umbrella, and if I dawdled much longer I would miss the bus, so I grabbed it and away I ran.

Once I got to work I took my laptop out of my bag, installed it in its docking station, and got to work. Later on, I looked at the pink umbrella and thought how grateful I was for not having to run through the rain. The last time that had happened it had taken me until noon to dry out. And that was in the summer. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had asked God to help me find my umbrella, not my wife’s pink one. “Well,” I thought to myself. “I know I’ll find it sooner or later because I asked Him.”

And then just as clear as a bell something said, “Look in your bag.”

My bag was sitting on the floor where I had left it after I had removed my laptop from it just a few hours before. Laptop bags usually have a very snug and very padded compartment to protect your equipment, and as you can see from the picture, when my laptop is in the bag, there isn’t any room for anything larger than a pencil.

So I grabbed my laptop bag and looked inside in the compartment where my laptop usually resides, and there, to my infinite surprise, was my umbrella!

Just for “fun”, I tried to put my laptop back in the bag with my umbrella in there too, and it wouldn’t fit. There was no way to get the umbrella and my laptop in the bag at the same time (the laptop stuck out at least an inch too far to zip the bag; see the last picture on this page). Of course, that’s beside the fact that I would never have tried to put my umbrella in there with my laptop.

How did it get there? I can’t say, all I know is it wasn’t there before.