With These Rings

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"I'll buy you another ring," my husband said.

I knew he meant well, but the ring was a family heirloom. "That ring can't be replaced," I cried.

"Honey, we don't even know where to begin looking," he said. "No, we're NOT going back," he insisted as he turned the car around and headed back to look for the rings.

It was hours before we found a location that seemed familiar. Occasionally some well-meaning person would pull his car over to the side of the road, roll down his window and yell, "Hey, buddy, what'd ya' lose?" At one point there must have been ten cars stopped on the side of the road, all abandoned by the occupants who had joined in the search. But with the sun going down, it was obvious that our chances of finding the rings were slim. I was crushed.

"Face it, Honey, they're gone," Brad said. "I know you're upset. I promise to try and find a suitable replacement."

I knew he was right. The walk in the cold that day had given me time to think about the day's events. I played the scene over and over in my mind, and what I saw was not a pretty sight. I had ranted and raved, nagged and wailed, and acted like a spoiled brat. I took a good long look at my husband pacing back and forth in the freezing cold. He had driven three hours back to this desolate area in the middle of a treacherous ice storm without one thought for himself, attempting to find something that was important to me. The rings might be gone, but there could never be a suitable replacement for my husband. Suddenly, the rings seemed so unimportant. I resolved right then and there to stop thinking only of myself.

It was at that very moment that I opened the car door and began to step inside. Something on the floor caught my eye. My rings! I grabbed them and waved them in the air. Brad rushed to my side and put them back on my finger. "This is where these rings belong," he whispered. I looked into his eyes, and knew that I had found what I was looking for. It wasn't my rings that were lost that day - I was the one who had been missing.

Life in the pastorate hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is me. We still move around more than I like. And I still have to start over again every time we do. But I've learned to appreciate when people call me "the preacher's wife," because etched into my mind is a frozen road in Texas, and a voice that whispers, "This is where these rings belong."

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