Serving in the United States Air Force, Floyd and I were stationed at RAF Alconbury in England for three years. Seven months before we were due to PCS (permanent change of station) back to the States, a house opened up at Upwood Base Housing, so we accepted it.
We moved into the house the end of May, 1981. A few short months later, Floyd got orders to Moody AFB in Valdosta, Georgia. We knew it was coming because his overseas assignment was only for three years, so this tour of duty was up in January, 1982.
Although the military always contracted with a local moving company to pack up and ship a service member’s belongings, Floyd and I had decided to go through things before they got there, organizing and packing some things ourselves so we’d know exactly where they were when our shipment arrived in Valdosta. While I packed, Floyd tried to get together documents that needed hand-carried (so they didn’t accidentally get packed), keys that needed turned into base housing, his orders and paperwork that he’d need to out-process from base, etc. Floyd had a whole list of things that needed done.
So while I’m packing, Floyd’s looking for the second set of house keys. We had to turn it in when we were cleared from base housing. After he’d searched all the usual places, I stopped to help him look. We practically turned the house upside down looking for those keys. Nothing else was getting done.
After searching for an hour, I said to Floyd, “We’ve got to get this other stuff done. Why don’t we pray and turn this over to God. Then we’ll get back to work, and the Lord will show us where those keys are.” Not knowing where else to look, Floyd agreed. We prayed together; then we put those missing keys out of our minds and returned to our separate tasks.
About an hour later, I accidentally dropped something into a big box that I was packing, but it was something that I didn’t want to pack, so I rummaged through the box to retrieve it. The box was tall and the item I’d dropped was small, so it gradually worked its way to the bottom of the box while I attempted to get hold of it. I finally got to the bottom of the box and grabbed it. And there were the house keys – at the bottom of the box. Somehow, they’d accidentally fallen in, and neither of us noticed. If we hadn’t prayed and trusted God to show us where to find them, we wouldn’t have found those keys until we were unpacking in Valdosta, Georgia.
Matthew 21:22 says, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” That was a little thing, but it was important to us, so we took it to God. He knew exactly where to find those keys.