“Where is my wallet?” This is a common question for me, and usually the answer is an easy one: On the desk, in my pants pocket, etc. I’ve begun using a binder clip so I can keep it in my front pocket where it is safer from sticky fingers on the crowded streets. I don’t really want to lose my wallet as it is quite troublesome to get new ATM cards sent to India, and I would probably have to wait for someone who was coming to this part of the world to make sure I get them safely. And then there would be the trouble of getting a new Indian driver’s license. To get the license, I sat in the office for basically three days. After about three days, I think everyone just felt sorry for me and made sure I got my license the next week. So losing my wallet would be a very large inconvenience.

“Where’s my wallet?” I asked Karen.

She responded with the typical answers: “Did you check your pants? Did you look under your desk?”

“Yes,” I responded. I must add that my wife has an uncanny ability to know where everything is. I find this both helpful and frustrating at the same time. How does she keep a mental catalog of everything she sees? I wonder.

Karen joined the search, and I felt confident we would find the wallet soon. But there was no sign of it anywhere. I mentally retraced my steps—where I last saw it, what I was wearing, where I went. I checked my pants pockets by wadding up the material, feeling for the stiff plastic cards. We found nothing. In desperation, I rechecked places I knew I had already searched. Days passed. I visited stores where I had recently shopped. “No,” the clerks said, “we haven’t seen your wallet, but if we do, we will hold it for you.”

After turning the house upside down several times and checking and rechecking various stores, I didn’t know what else to do. I guess I must have lost it on the road somehow, I said to myself.
Friday came, and Karin and I got ready for Sabbath. She did some ironing while I vacuumed the house. Sabbath morning the sun was shining, so we went for a leisurely walk. Slipping my hand into my pants pocket, I felt something. I pulled it out and stared at it in disbelief—my wallet! I had checked those slacks many times. Karen was surprised, too. She had just ironed those pants the day before, and when she irons she pulls the pockets out so they don’t leave an outline. Not to mention that it’s impossible even to iron over a button without noticing it, much less a wallet.
We still aren’t sure what happened, but it’s a miracle either way. God either miraculously made us blind for a week, or He miraculously returned my wallet to my pants.