Lost passport

Things That Went Right Today:

1) Daughter cleaned out the storage room!! Thanks honey!
2) Going out to dinner tonight...don't have to cook.
3) Finished week four of the running program I am on. So far so good.

I'm planning a trip this summer to Tanzania with my husband and 18 year old son to go on a safari and climb Mount Kilimanjaro. We had been booked to go last year, but for various reasons the trip fell through so we're going to give it another try! I'm really excited about this big adventure and am in training now to be sure I'm up to the challenge and make it to the summit. To secure the tickets though we needed to give the agent some information from our passports today. To my dismay I realized this morning that my son's was not where I thought it was. A minor panic attack followed and the majority of the day was spent turning the house upside down looking for the lost passport.  I checked the place where the rest of the passports were kept. I checked his room and dresser drawers. I looked in my desk and the filing cabinet downstairs. I even offered my other kids a reward if they could find it first so I had more eyes looking, but nothing! All day long I kept having this nagging feeling that I should check the box of random filing items in the kitchen, but I couldn't think of any reason why it would have ever been put there so I ignored the prompting. I searched the car glove box, and in my husband's closet and mine. Still nothing. Again this little thought came into my mind...how about that random file box??? But no, I never would have had any reason to put it there soooo...we dug through the kitchen drawers and the office wet bar cabinets and the boxes of paper in the storage, and the nightstands. No luck! I was exhausted and pretty much ready to give up when I decided what the heck...why not check the crazy box? What could it hurt right? Even though I was positive that was the last place it would ever be. Sure enough though...there it was. Sigh. And I once again was reminded of the power of intuition. I find that I often dismiss my gut instincts and defer to what I think is most logical. Or socially accepted. Or easiest. At times the promptings I have don't even seem to make sense in light of other information available so it's easy to dismiss them. But I'm learning that our subconscious mind speaks to us quietly. In whispers.  And if we pay close attention and trust in what it tells us, it will more often than not turn out to be the right thing to do. Have you ever just known something and not even been sure why you knew it? Felt strongly that you ought to do or say a certain thing, but haven't been sure if you should? Had a big decision to make and immediately known the right course, but then second guessed yourself later on?  And don't you usually find out later that your first impressions or inclinations turned out to be correct? This obviously doesn't always prove to be true, but quite often it does. I could have saved myself a lot of anxiety today had I just listened to that internal voice early on. I still have no idea how my son's passport ended up in that box, but somewhere in the recesses of my brain I must have remembered somehow. I am thankful today that we have gut instincts to guide us, and will try to learn from today's lesson and rely on mine more readily in the future!!