Last week I started trying to write this article. Usually I think for weeks about these articles, but as I sit down to write them my fingers barely keep up as my thoughts spill out. I worked for hours, eventually starting a whole new article and finding neither to be satisfactory. Well, I think it is because this is the article I was supposed to write, and the event that inspired it transpired later that afternoon.
I was pushing my baby in her little car out on our driveway, keeping an eye on my pre-school-aged daughter and her friend jumping on the trampoline in the backyard. My daughter got hurt on the tramp and decided to go inside and, well, mope really. Not 5 minutes later, when she didn't reappear, I invited her friend to come inside so they could play together again. We searched the entire house, calling her name; went down the street to his grandma's house where her friend was staying to see if she had gone there; came back home and searched again inside and out. Still not finding her, we began knocking on neighbors' doors and grew increasingly alarmed. I sent the friend home and searched the house and yard yet again. I called my husband home from work, and he searched the house and neighborhood. We finally called the police and had several officers come search our home and surrounding areas and launched a massive search involving about more than 50 friends, neighbors, and family members, and plenty of prayers. After a few more searches of our house by family members, my husband suddenly burst outside holding our daughter.
After some emotions subsided, we all listened as he told where he had found her. Even though, logically, I kept thinking she had to be in the house, we all somehow missed her quiet, sleeping, rolled-up-into-a-ball self. She had crawled under a very low play table with sides on it in the playroom and amazingly avoided detection for 1 1/2 hours. WHAT?! How could we all miss an entire person we were searching for when she was right under our noses?
All weekend, I thought, "I think I should learn something from this, but what?" Days later, it finally dawned on me. Here is the lesson I am choosing to take from this 'fun' little experience. Often we look at situations and people and think we are seeing all that is there. We make judgments and decisions based off of what we are sure is the whole picture, because, surely we are clear on all the facts. However, often there are things we don't know, pieces of the puzzle we maybe didn't even know were missing, that drastically impact the situation or our relationships. Many relationships have ended when people got emotional about what they thought was the obvious reality instead of digging deeper with an open mind to find out the truth. Many catastrophes could have been avoided had there been a little faith and patience. I have heard the saying, "You don't know what you don't know." It has gained new meaning for me now, and I truly hope it is a lesson I won't forget.
As a funny side-note: apparently my daughter learned a lesson as well. I overheard her talking to her friends a few days later, and she confided in them, "The other day, I hid under this table and fell asleep. The police came, and.....they gave me a TEDDY BEAR!" I'm so glad she has learned the concept of cause and effect. We had better watch out......
