I learned of the sale while searching for a more affordable way to purchase clothes and accessories for my daughters’ American Girl dolls. According to the company’s website, “American Girl donates seconds and returned merchandise to Wisconsin’s Madison Children’s Museum, whose volunteers refurbish the products for their Annual Benefit Sale. Since American Girl initiated this partnership in 1988, the annual sale has raised more than $18 million and attracted more than 140,000 shoppers from around the country.”[i]

An event of this magnitude definitely sounded like an adventure. It was also going to be a mini-vacation, complete with sightseeing the day before and an overnight stay at a local hotel.

Our first surprises were good ones—like standing in a cavern that was once the ocean floor during our tour of Cave Of The Mounds, a geological wonder that has attracted millions of tourists since its accidental discovery in 1939. Later that afternoon we were equally amazed when, while checking into our hotel, we learned that approximately ten thousand people from more than forty states were expected to attend the sale.

Hollie was beside herself with excitement the next morning as she waited for our turn to enter the warehouse. When we did, I couldn’t believe how much there was to see: books for three dollars, dolls for half-price, and dozens of racks of children’s clothes. Our arms were so loaded down when we were ready to check out that I wondered how we were going to fit everything into my van.

“I can’t believe I’m buying so much stuff,” I said as I studied the pile at my feet. “Bill is going to freak.”

“I know,” Stephanie replied with a look of shock on her face.

“A lot of it is for Christmas and birthdays,” I said, more to reassure myself than her. “And two of the dolls are for a friend who asked me to buy them for her daughters.”

Thirty minutes later, I was directed to an open check-out lane where a volunteer told me to take everything out of my bags so she could add up what I owed.

“Take this to the cashier when you're ready,” the woman said as she handed me an invoice.

Not wanting to forget anything, I methodically placed all of the clothes into one large duffle bag and used the remaining totes for books and other items. I thought I had done a good job of repacking … until we arrived home with our purchases to find that nearly $200 worth of merchandise was missing.

“I think I left one of my bags at the American Girl sale,” I told Stephanie after we unloaded the van.

“Which one?” she asked as our daughters stopped playing with their purchases to listen to the conversation.

“The bag with all the clothes,” I replied. “The American Girl coat that I bought for Hollie, the pajamas I planned to give the girls’ friends at Christmas, the black sweatshirts that had the store’s logo on the back. All of it was in the bag.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know. I could have left it at the table where I paid for everything. Or maybe someone picked it up by accident.”

“Or on purpose,” one of my children interrupted.

With that theory, the mood in the room quickly shifted as the kids began searching for someone to blame.

“They probably stole the bag when we weren’t looking,” one of the girls said.

“I wish we’d never gone to the sale,” another added.

“Our day is ruined!” the last one cried.

I watched helplessly as the joy on the girls’ faces vanished behind a cloud of sadness and tears.

It can’t end this way, I said to myself. This can’t be the one thing they remember about our trip.

Author Jim Burns once said: “When it comes to the climate of your home, it is your responsibility as the parent to set the ‘emotional thermostat.’”[ii] Knowing that it was my job to create a positive atmosphere in our family room, I decided to cool things down with a cautionary tale.

“Let me tell you a story,” I said to the girls as I held up my hands to get their attention. “When Katie and Hollie were just three and five, I took them to visit a college friend who lived in Dallas.”

“Wanting to thank my friend for all she did to make us feel welcome, I offered to take her and her husband out to dinner while a sitter stayed with the kids. Even though my friend knew that I was a picky eater, she ignored my request to eat at a place that served American or Italian food and took me to a fancy European restaurant instead.”

“Having to pay $100 for a meal that I did not enjoy bothered me,” I continued after seeing that I had the girls’ full attention, “but when I told Bill what had happened, do you know what he said?”

“What?” the girls asked in unison.

“Don’t let it shape your experience.”

I ended my story by saying that I took Bill’s advice and focused on all the good things the friend did for us during that trip.

“Because she and I decided not to let the bad things that happened shape our experience, we are still friends today,” I told them. “The same is true for the American Girl Sale. We can't let one missing bag shape how we remember our trip.”

“If God wants us to have the clothes,” I added, “He will show us what to do to get the bag back. And if He doesn’t, then the person who does have our purchases must need them more than we do.”

All four girls seemed satisfied with my assessment of the situation as they ran upstairs to play. When they were gone, Stephanie came up to me to say: “The way you handled that was amazing!”

“What do you mean?”

“You have so much faith!”

Her words caught me by surprise: What did the story have to do with faith?

At the time, I was not far enough along on my spiritual journey to understand that faith is more than a passive belief in God. It’s the intentional effort we make to take Him at His word.

The Word I relied on when I told the girls that God would do good with our clothes—whether we got them back or not—came from Romans 8:28. By assuring them that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him,” I was subconsciously demonstrating that faith, in it’s most effective form, is a verb—not a noun.

Beth Moore wrote about this present-active-participle type of faith in her Bible study Believing God when, on page 41, she had this to say on the subject: “Faith is complete engagement with God: holding on to God and His promises because we know He’s holding on to us.”

I wanted this type of complete engagement. And I knew from James 2:26 that “faith without deeds is dead.” Still, it didn’t feel right when Stephanie started calling restaurants near the sale to see if any customers were wearing a t-shirt like the ones the volunteers had on earlier that day. Although it made sense to ask someone who had been working at the sale to check for our bag before we spent any money to retrieve it, I knew in my heart that this was not the way that God was going to carry out His promise to use bad for good.

Looking back, I wonder if God made me feel that way because finding the bag through a phone call would have made it too easy to give ourselves, rather than Him the credit. Or maybe God thought that a logical answer would get in the way of, not His glory, but our spiritual growth. According to Beth Moore, that “which is completely obvious and explainable is not faith.”[iii] After participating in one of her ten-week sessions, I had to agree.

Regardless of the reason for my uneasiness, I knew that every minute my friend spent on the phone was one less that we would have together; and I urged Stephanie to give up her well-intentioned attempts to help. After making several calls, she reluctantly complied with my request and we spent the rest of the evening enjoying each other’s company. Hours later, we were still engaged in conversation as our daughters and my husband slept soundly upstairs.

“I wonder how many people will be at the sale tomorrow,” Stephanie said.

“And how much they will mark down what’s left,” I added.