I get it. Things do happen for a reason.

There are two necessary supplies a reporter needs when headed out to get a story – a notebook and some sort of writing utensil.

I like mechanical pencils, but I have this thing about pens – a thin point, small and typically in blue. None of the characteristics found in pens living inside The Star-News supply closet.

Not having a favorite, I usually tend to pick up a new pen out of the jar on my desk each time I head out the door. When the stack inside the car gets big, I grab a handful, put them back in the cup on my desk and the process starts again.

When I do find a favorite, I stick with it, as was the case with one I found – believe it or not – behind the bathroom counter at the house.

The pen was light, small and wrote so well that I had our office manager order a new refill when that one ran dry.

On Friday after swimming, the girls were starving. So, I made a quick run through the McDonalds’ drive-thru. After paying, I distinctly remember handing my debit card to the oldest girl and watched as she wrapped the receipt around the card.

Friday evening, I attended a wedding in Florala and went to have dinner afterward. I pulled out my purse to pay, and I couldn’t lay my hands on that card for love or money. It wasn’t in my purse – which is where it should have been. It wasn’t in the console, in the seat, in the floorboard or any other place I looked. All I can say is thank goodness Mr. Man was with me or I might’ve had to wash dishes. Driving back home I wracked my brain, and then I remembered.

As I left First Baptist after the wedding, I thought I heard something fall to the ground as I pulled my phone from my clutch – one of those “remember after the fact” things, you know. I looked, but it was pouring down rain, and I didn’t see anything on the ground.

All weekend long I monitored my online banking account, watching for fraudulent debits.

On Monday, I got the number from the bank to cancel the card. I went so far as to call it when I got to the office, but hung up when they started asking for my account information.

I elected to make to-do list before heading out to the car to get my purse, only to realize I’d left my pen.

A bit agitated, I grabbed my keys and walked outside and around to the passenger side of the car. I reached in to grab my pen off the seat when I noticed a silver glint down by the side of the seat. It was the reflective strip on my debit card.

Eureka!

“Thank you, Jesus,” I said, walking back into my office. “I thought for sure I’d lost this thing. I found it looking for my pen.”

My co-worker said, “Things happen for a reason, huh?”

Once, I would have scoffed at that sage observation. Granted the example I’m about to give is paltry to others we may have experienced, I think it serves the illustration well. One could say proof is in the ink, I guess.