I think designer jeans came into play in the early 2000's. It must have been 2003 because prior to that, expensive jeans for mainstream laymen were Levi's, Mavis or Guess jeans. There was no True Religion, Seven for all mankind, Citizens of Humanity, 575, Rock and Republic, Joe's or Hudsons. In fact, tall people like yours truly hated wearing jeans because they never were long enough and everyone would ask me when the floods were coming with my high water pants. That all changed in 2002.
I'll never forget the moment I saw Kassie, my ballroom buddy from North Carolina, in those fabulous jeans. I stared at them for quite a while, and thought I just have to know where she got 'em! Kassie was tall like me so whatever jeans she had would fit me. She told me they were a brand called seven that she found at Nordstrom and how she also never wore jeans until now! The bad news was they were quite hefty in price, roughly around 100. "A HUNDRED BUCKS FOR JEANS? You have GOT to be kidding me," I told her. She reassured me they were well worth the price and were also surprisingly comfortable. I didn't trust her.
Until three years later when I invested in a pair myself. They did fit really well! And they were so long I had to get them hemmed (for free at Nordstrom of course). Wow! I quickly amassed four pairs of Seven for all mankind jeans, one of which was courtesy of United Airlines who lost my luggage during a training for which I needed jeans, one from my mom that we scored at a Black Friday sale at the local Macy's.
One day shortly after Andy and I were married and living in our apartment together, I turned the place upside down looking for one pair of my Seven jeans. They were nowhere to be found. I called my mom at home, asking her to look for me, frantically longing for them, but she was quite positive I had taken everything when I moved. I then gave up. A few months later, I again longed for my seven jeans and everytime we visited my parents, I would turn my old room upside down looking and then search all the closets and even laundry baskets (just in case). I knew they were there... somewhere! Another few months later, still not letting go of hope that I'd find them, I called my mom, patiently asking if she had seen my jeans. This time, she said she recalled they were somewhere in the house but she was too busy to find 'em at the moment and when she finally did, she had no luck. A few more months later, four unsuccessful search attempts later, I almost gave up hope. So I went through all the boxes at our apartment again, still unable to find them. Still no jeans.
After I gave birth to Jordan, I longed even more for these jeans because they were larger and might fit my post pregnant self so I again called home - this time asking my brother if he had seen them (since he took over my old room). He told me he'd keep an eye out but I was starting to lose hope!
And this is when I finally decided... maybe it's not too silly to pray about it. I mean... I know they are practically lost and completely gone at this point, but maybe, just maybe I can get some peace of mind from praying about it.
So I did exactly that.
I gave a short prayer - sincerely asking to find them or to have peace about not finding them and to move on already! I was so tired of obsessing over these pair of jeans, exhausting so much of myself that even the hefty price had already been relieved from the time spent looking.
I called my mom again - she was quite familiar with the ask - but I asked her if she remembered seeing them especially since they would probably fit my pregnant self much better. She said she knew which pair I was seeking, but still hadn't managed to find 'em yet. And then, POOF - she said, there might be one more place she could look.
Five minutes later.... she called me and told me she had found them!
Could it be? Really? Was all this effort something I could have bypassed had I just been humble enough to pray for some help in the first place? I felt so silly. I had prayed to find a pair of jeans. And I had my prayer answered.
I was embarrassed to tell Andy that I finally found my jeans because I prayed about it, but he was oh too familiar with the search - one that had commenced so shortly after we had been married and one I often went off to look for when we visited my parents.
We found the jeans this last Saturday which was the same day Andy's mom lost her glasses. We looked and looked for those glasses and even thought we had found 'em when Ike came in with a similar pair claiming he had found 'em (cruel joke but kinda funny actually). We removed the sofa cushions, looked underneath the sofa, all over the floor, in the bathroom, in the guest bedroom, on the table, in the kitchen... everywhere! With NO luck!
Two days went by and we still had not found it. So when most of our family left to the Almansor duck park in Alhambra, I asked Andy if we should pray about it. It again felt silly but it had worked such wonders with my jeans, maybe we should just pray about these glasses so we could either find 'em or forget about 'em already!
So we prayed.
The family came home from the park, told us how great it was - ducks AND turtles too! - and then, guess who found her glasses? They were in her purse the whole time! A place that we had looked but maybe overlooked?
It reminds me that we must not ever think our prayers are beyond Him. Even for my jeans.. even for May's glasses... even for whatever you may need to be okay. In our case, we found what we were looking for, but I have no doubt Heavenly Father would have answered our prayer either way - if we didn't find the jeans or the glasses, we would have been okay with it and would have ceased our search.
But we must not ever think our prayers are too little or too unimportant for even Him.
