My Purse by Lisa Mick

A purse is an important part of a woman and her wardrobe.  In fact, I am very attached to mine.  Really! I don’t leave it behind!  My husband tries to get me to not carry it because it is so heavy.  I always tell him I can’t leave it because it holds everything I need. Things like my makeup bag, brush, dental floss, pens, pencils, clips for my hair, wallet, antibacterial hand cleaner, epi pen and usually a nail file! Wait a minute, I forgot, usually a snack to munch on and Advil or Aleve too!  I try to be extremely prepared, but to tell you the truth it is very heavy. 

This leads me to tell you about my Walk to Emmaus, which is a wonderful weekend with the Lord and others who love Jesus.  In fact, it can change your idea of what you really think your life is supposed to be.  It was a beautiful moment of time that I will always remember.

A funny thing happened while I was there.  When we arrived at camp on Thursday night, I left my purse in my sponsor’s car while we went to dinner.  Remember I never leave it, but I was told I wouldn’t need it for that.   Little did I realize, I would not be going back to retrieve my purse after we finished eating. 

On the way to our first event of the evening, I could not forget about my purse.  I was worried if my sponsor would leave with it.   One of the retreat leaders saw the distraught look upon my face, she approached me and asked, “Is everything ok?”  “Well, no ma’am it isn’t, I don’t have my purse.”  She replied, It will be fine, your sponsor will get it to you later.  For the life of me I could not let go of it and relax.  I started being anxious about not having my purse and worrying about not getting it back.  How can I go all weekend without my purse? Again, the leader said, “Don’t worry, your purse will find you later.”  So you can see I was fretting over that purse and couldn’t settle down and trust that later it would be in my room.  I worried about it and didn’t pray.  All evening, I was concerned about my purse.

Do you know what?  When I arrived in my cabin later that evening, there was my purse sitting on my bed.  Whew! What a sigh of relief for me.  I didn’t need to worry did I?  Wasn’t I told that my purse would be fine?  You see, it was out of my control and I didn’t trust.  Sound familiar?  Don’t we waste our time fretting over things in our lives and not trusting our Father?  Don’t we put too much importance on material things, especially our purses ladies that we carry with us everyday?  So this reminded me of a scripture in Philippians which has carried me through many anxious thoughts! Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:6-7  Did I remember this when I was fretting about my purse?  No, I was leaning on my own understanding and thought process and didn’t even think to pray.  If I had stopped and recalled this scripture and prayed about my purse, I could have left this request to God. 

Then the truth is the peace of God would have transcended on me. 

At the end of the weekend another friend came to pick me up.  I was excited about telling her about all of the wonderful moments of my Walk to Emmaus.  It was precious to get to share it with her.  She drove up in my driveway and we unloaded all of my things.  My husband was there to help and it was good to see him.  She left and Dennis and I went inside and were talking about my exciting time when my phone rang about twenty minutes later.  Can you believe it?  I left my purse in her car.  After the experience of trusting God and leaning on him for the weekend and learning how secure I am in his presence, the purse wasn’t important anymore.  Within a weekend’s time, my purse didn’t exist, but my newfound love in Christ had exponentially grown. 

I didn’t need my purse as a security blanket anymore; now I just needed Christ Jesus.  He alone fills all my needs.