My keys were found today. I can’t say I, or anyone else, found them. I simply and bewilderingly became aware of them.

I was aware that they were lost five days ago. My typical weekend routine is that I place my keys in my purse every Saturday morning, as soon as I emerge from my room dressed for church and ready to eat breakfast. Time passes and I am home again, where I place my purse into a basket just inside my bedroom door, where it sits, undisturbed, until I become the driver again on Monday.

Well, Monday arrived, and my purse refused to cough up my keys. It insisted it had no keys. I shook it down and repacked it twice. It was speaking the truth. Next I tried another bag the purse had briefly nested in. I emptied the bag basket. I patted down my clothes. I searched our reliable old Ford Flex, whose black interior gobbles up everything. I returned with a trash can for a second attempt and fully investigate every crevice and remove every unattached object. No keys. I scoured the church on two occasions, and messaged staff to pretty please be on the lookout.

Brian, seeing my discouragement, reminded me that my keys will show up when I stop looking. So I left the matter at my small group’s prayer time on Tuesday, and I stopped looking. This morning, I got up and pulled some jeans off of my closet shelf. They flopped, unfolded, in my hand as I trudged around collecting other clothing items. I habitually opened a bathroom drawer and slung my clothes over it until I was ready for them. Once dressed, I found myself sitting in my favorite spot by the window with my coffee and my air-fried chicken biscuit.

Mom called. She sounded cheery as she made the usual query about what activities my day held. It was good to talk to her. I get zoned into my crazy homeschool mom life and time passes faster than my attention realizes. We’d been trying to get over for a visit for a while, but the schedules keep not lining up. It’s been on my heart to try harder to bridge the gap that had been forming. It’s hard to have teenagers approaching college the college phase, and parents aging; it feels like time is slipping away with all of them. Worries pop up in my heart for all of them. I asked mom if she’d like me to pick her up to go shopping. We haven’t done that in the longest time. She seemed excited for a little adventure together to the nearby big box store.

I hung up, went and told the guys my plan, buried my feet in some shoes, and approached the key rack to grab Brian’s keys and head over to Mom and Dad’s place. This is the part where my brain breaks. Heather Thompson Day, in her new book, “What If I’m Wrong,” talks about faith feeling like a fine line between trust and delusion. That’s exactly how I felt as I stood at the key rack, about to grab Brian’s keys, while my other hand robotically patted my pants pocket and my attention snapped to the realization that there was something under my hand that felt a whole lot like keys. I did a double take to the rack to make sure I hadn’t already mindlessly taken Brian’s keys. I pulled the small, solid bundle out of my pocket and stared into my very own keys. I looked back and forth between them and the key rack a few times.

Ian happened to be standing there as this transpired. “Are those your keys??” he wondered. “Apparently…” I puzzled, “But how…How are they in my pocket?!” I rather froze in time as my mind’s eye jogged again through every scenario of the week, searching for the moment where I could identify having put my keys in my jeans pocket — and how they could’ve remained there, undetected, as I slung my pants around and wore them about all that morning.

“I think God’s being funny,” I tentatively concluded. Ian agreed. Either I’ve lost my mind or God did something. My heart somehow attached this moment to having taken an action to go connect with Mom. I can’t know for sure, but the timing is suspicious. Maybe it’s just a playful hug from God. Maybe perimenopause has me a little delusional. It definitely feels like it. But, I’m choosing to believe God answered a simple prayer for keys with a nod that he hears my prayers for my family, too.