The Diaper Bag

It was March 1st. A storm was blowing through Alabama and into Tennessee. We had been to the museum in Nashville, had lunch downtown and were headed south to meet Ella Kate (then 10 days old) at her home in Thompson's Station. However, we had to stop about 15 minutes from Shawn and Heather's house (that's Ella Kate's daddy and mommy) for a potty break for the guys in our family. They returned quickly and we headed on down the road.

When we got to my brother's house, we couldn't find the diaper bag. WHERE WAS THE DIAPER BAG!?!? I remembered having it at the restaurant with the sippy cups. Brent drove back to the gas station (the potty break stop) to see if he could find it. I started calling every convenience store I could find in the phone book with that name. Heather found phone numbers of parking lots in downtown Nashville. (Why didn't we take that receipt when we paid parking!?) I called the restaurant. There was no diaper bag to be found.

Now let me just tell you...this is no ordinary diaper bag...or maybe it is...this diaper bag had my pocketbook Bible that I'd had since college, Brent's new electric razor, Brent's Palm Pilot, a ziploc bag of crayons I'd been collecting since Brock was a baby, enough pullups and diapers to last 2 days for twins, and then the usual diaper bag stuff (i.e. ointments, wipes, sippy cups, etc.) WHERE WAS THE DIAPER BAG??!!

I searched my memory to figure out what had happened to it. The only thing I knew was that it either fell out at the parking lot or at the "potty break". Then it hit me...when Brent and Brock came back to the van, Brent opened both sliding doors (habit!) then immediately closed the passenger side door since it wasn't needed. It must have fallen out. But why wouldn't someone call us. You see, the bag had our nice little church ID card on it with the twins' names, address and phone number. WHERE ARE THE HONEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!?!?

Hannah and Brock continued to ask why someone didn't give us our diaper bag back. Although I wanted to tell them there were mean people all over the world, I knew better. I told them that God knew where our diaper bag was and that He could bring it home to us if He wanted to. So we prayed every day that whomever had our diaper bag would send it back.

Honestly, I had just about given up. Brent bought a new Palm, I found new sippy cups to use and life continued.

Friday morning...March 16th...the phone rang...it was a lady in Tennessee...was I the mom of Corinne and Emma? "Yes." She had the diaper bag!! The kids were SOOOOOOOOOOO excited! I was so excited!! She apologized for not calling earlier. They had 2 deaths in their family and had been out of town two times. The bag had indeed fallen out at the "potty break". They saw our van and tried to catch up with us but lost us. (We exited about 2 miles down the interstate.) Her husband was shipping it to us that day.

And so today...March 20th...the first day of spring...19 days after we lost the diaper bag...it came home to us via UPS! And everything was still there...including the 3 week old banana!! :) So I gave it a good cleaning and it's ready to go again.

What's the point to this story? God used a simple thing like a diaper bag to teach our children (and to remind us) that He cares about every little detail of our lives. Our kids know our prayers were answered.

And God bless Mr. and Mrs. Hall in Tennessee! There are two honest people in the world!!