By Tiffane White
Washington, D.C.
Friday, September 1, 2006 4:00 PM

I lost my yellow, leather hat. There were only a couple of places where I could have left it and I just knew someone had stolen it. I feared that it was gone forever.

But one day, years after the hat was long gone, I prayed to God, "Jesus, only you can find that hat for me because I have no idea what happened to it or who stole it. But would you find it for me, please?" I left it at that.

Sometime after that prayer, my long-time dentist asked me to work for him for three days. He said, "I may not need you all three days, but I'll pay you if you would answer the phones and do some light filing."

In the over 20 years that he had been cleaning my teeth, he had never asked me to work for him and I had never been behind the front desk or in the file room.

The office was closed that first day because a snowstorm had hit D.C. the day before. So, I just answered the phone and rescheduled appointments. The work was easy and the day was short. The second day, patients came in and I retrieved their files from the back room. While filing in the M - N drawers, I saw a yellow ball of dust on the top of the file cabinet. It was the kind of thin dust covering that develops when something has been sitting undisturbed. It lets you know that no one has touched it for years.

I looked. I saw the brim. I noted the color. It was my long lost, yellow leather hat! I asked my dentist if he knew what it was. He scowled, "That thing has been sitting up there for years. It's yours? Take it." Gladly, I did.

I knew that he would call me the next day to say that he didn't need me. And that was okay because the only reason that I was there was for God to lead me to my yellow, leather hat.

Moral: No one wants that hat but you, Tif! And God hears all of our simple, mundane, "Jesus-I-need-a-legal-parking-space-at-noon-in-front-of-DC-Superior-Court" prayers.

Sometimes, He says, "Yes".