Ring, Ring, Ring . . . Hello?

Jason and I have been under the weather, so naturally we watched Muppet Treasure Island yesterday in our bedroom. I put my wedding ring on the bedside table as usual and slipped in and out of napping and empathizing with pirate and Muppet friends experiencing the under-appreciated disease, Cabin Fever.

This morning I went to put on my ring as usual and I only found my engagement ring. I search all around the table and surrounding area for my wedding band and I couldn't find it. I felt really unsettled about that so I spent a fair amount of my morning searching. I dismantled the bed, searched through the books we have on our bed stand in case it rolled in the pages or something (one of which being The Lord of the Rings, which unfortunately yielded no tangible results), I shook out every piece of clothing I wore yesterday and I just couldn't find it.

I tried to go through my normal morning routine, but losing my ring really threw off my groove. I was sadder than after we ran out of wedding presents to open, in which situation, I looked like this:


I even had to call Jason for a pep talk. I kept praying to find my ring and just felt like I was getting no response. It occurred to me that my wedding ring was more important to me than I had previously thought. It wasn't just the actual thing, but the symbol-- the evidence on my finger that I am married, though the ring itself was also a factor. I love my ring, I remember Jason giving it to me and the things he said and how excited I was to have it.

Even more disturbing was the prospect of not finding it after praying. I wanted to feel the Holy Ghost guiding me and helping me get on to the bigger issues of the morning and it seemed like I was alone hung up on this tiny, gray band.

I have been reading a lot of literature lately alluding or directly stating that God is an illusion that humans need to keep their balance. The theory is that He does not really exist, but we need the idea of him, if only to give us hope and inspiration to be our best selves. I have thought, well, that is simply not true, because I do need God everyday. He has to be real, more than simply because I need Him, but because there is evidence of Him everywhere, right?

I kept thinking about my seminary classes and how I had learned that people in the early days of the church had left over issues like spilt milk and other such seeming nonsense. The consensus of the class was that they left because their testimonies were not rooted within them and these small events were the push to leave.

I started to consider the question Would my lost ring be cause to shatter my testimony? I sat with my Frosted Flakes in a completely existentialist moment and realized that no it is not.

As much as I love my ring, not finding it would not mean that Jason and I were no longer in love or married anymore. It was a symbol of our marriage, not a reflection of the thing itself. And not getting an answer would not shatter my testimony, as much as I like my ring. I always seem to get what I want, and I thought, if God was not giving me something, it was not because He didn't want to or, worse, because He wasn't there, it was because he wanted me to grow.

My ring fell out of the sweatshirt I had repeatedly shook out this morning.