When objects seem lost and then suddenly reappear: little miracles and not so little ones

God is so good: He gives us little miracles; He gives us big ones. They're all a sign of His watchfulness (and that of angels).

Just after Christmas, I recounted how I apparently left a pair of brand new sandals at a hotel in Kigali, Rwanda, and also lost a pair of special rosaries a couple days before on a bus in Kibeho (site of apparitions) over there in Africa.

The sandals turned up two weeks later in the middle of our foyer-dining room floor (late on Christmas morning -- in one of the most highly visible spots in the house, right where my wife had just vacuumed, not having been there before); and as for the rosaries, they somehow made their way home in a pouch in a new piece of luggage (I never put those rosaries in luggage, and can't remember going anywhere near that piece of luggage the night I discovered them missing, which I had almost immediately). Yet, there they were. Little miracles (and perhaps not so little, seeing how distant Kigali is).

There are plenty of folks, judging by our mailbag, who have had similar experiences.

Often, it's our angels whom we have beseeched to find what we have lost or misplaced (as in this case I did, along with Our Lady of Kibeho). Sometimes, it's Saint Anthony (I'm sure I also asked him). Behind it all, of course, is the Lord.

"I read the story about the rosary and have a very similar story," said one viewer. "In 1968, I purchased a rosary for my mom with one decade spelling her name -- Theresa Ann. She attended Mass and accidentally left it in church. After many frantic calls: no rosary... My mom died in 1998 and two years later -- in 2000 -- a nun at our parish stopped me to thank me for the box of rosaries left on her desk. (I make rosaries and have made over 24,000 for missions and priests). She asked if I were positive that I wanted to give her the one rosary -- and guess what? It was the rosary I purchased in 1968. I have no idea how it arrived at her office as I did not leave any rosaries for her!"

"Same thing happened to us about 10 years ago when we were living in the northwest," adds Peg Diesburg in Denver. "My husband misplaced his wedding band and we looked everywhere. After two weeks it just appeared on our bedroom dresser after coming home from Mass and after giving up on ever finding it again. We still talk about it appearing out of nowhere and that it had to be a miracle."

"I loved reading your story about the miraculously returned sandals," says Jane Griffin in St. Louis. "I, too, had a similar experience last year. In July a dearly loved cousin, who was a very devout nun, passed away. Two days after her funeral my husband realized he could not find some very important documents he needed for a report he was working on. We searched everywhere and had about given up when I recalled having read a few times that sometimes our Lord will allow the recently deceased to do favors as a consolation to their loved ones still on earth. So -- we prayed and asked if Sister Jean would please help us find the papers. A short time later my husband called me to come in to the dining room.

"There -- on an otherwise empty dining room table - that we had seen countless times -- were the papers neatly stacked. A miracle for sure!"

There are always possible "explanations." Try hard enough, and you can raise questions. Absent-mindedness? Jet lag? We can only imagine how the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph felt after losing and then finding Jesus!

"About your rosary beads," says Dr. Thomas F. Warner, professor of surgical pathology at the University of Wisconsin. " I was on my way to a pilgrimage site several years ago and lost my rosary ring in O’Hare . I looked everywhere especially since it was from Medjugorje. I was upset. I arrived in Boston for the trans- Atlantic connection and when I got up from the plastic seat in the waiting lounge, there it was on the seat ---I could never figure out how it got there. As a young teenager we would change on the pebbly beach for a swim after school (in Tralee, Ireland ) and there went my scapular which had a peculiar reparative knot on it – a tough scapular, left on the beach. A few weeks later we were exploring the shoreline a good mile away from the spot and there was my scapular on the seaweed line. Did I get the message? Eventually."

That reminds us of a similar account on the west coast of Florida whereby a woman related how she lost a watch in the Gulf of Mexico and then brought it up later on -- while she was fishing miles away.

Adds Julie Stumphauzer in Vermilion, Ohio: "I just read your article on the lost rosary and sandals you had restored to you, and I could relate to it.

"Just a few weeks ago, I too had such an experience.

"In October, we had taken our son to Philadelphia to deploy for Africa in the Peace Corps. After two other overnight stops, we arrived back home. Upon unpacking, I discovered that I had lost one of the diamond stud earrings that my husband had given me years before.

"We searched everywhere -- both in the luggage and in my jewelry armoire until I finally resigned myself to the loss. Near the end of November, I took the remaining stud to a local jeweler to see what a duplicate to match would cost. They had the piece for a few days.

"Then one morning the lady there called me to give me the price quote -- $500, which is far too expensive for our budget now. I thanked her but declined, and said I’d be in to pick up the single stud that day. I hung up the phone, said a quick prayer like, 'Well, Lord, I guess I’ll just have to do without them from now on' – then suddenly remembered that that very morning I had opened the tray of my jewelry box, seen the single stud lying there, and thought to myself, 'Gee, it’s too bad that the other is lost; what will I do with just the one?' –forgetting momentarily that I had already taken the other to the store!

"I went back upstairs slowly, opened my jewelry box, and in the top tray -- in a place I had searched many times before, in plain sight, and which I used for other pieces every day and could not possibly have missed the earring sitting there – there it was.

"The lady at the store later was almost as elated as I was! I’ve never had this kind of gift from God before, but I truly believe that this time He gave me a tangible sign of His Presence in my life, at a time when I need to remember that He’s always with me."