Nora is a little bear wearing a lovely little pink jump-suit with the words “Jesus Loves Me” fashioned upon the front.  Nora originally belonged to our girls, but their little brother soon took a liking to her, much to my husband’s dismay.  

He carried around this little pink bear with him everywhere he went.  Nora played in the mud and had to be washed, which unfortunately put an end to her singing “Jesus Loves Me” with a press on her little, round tummy.  All the same she was a dreadfully important bear. 

One day, we couldn't find Nora. Even after multiple, careful searches over a long period of time, we still could not locate her. We assumed she was here or there but Nora never did show up. My husband hoped that this sweet boy would just forget about her, but I knew that was unlikely. Sure enough, Corban's innocent inquiries soon turned to mournful cries.  He didn't want another bear...he just wanted Nora!  Now it was MY turn to to mourn because there was nothing I could do about it at all...Nora was a second-hand bear, and we hadn't seen any others like here anywhere.

 I looked on Ebay and Amazon and scoured Craigslist for a little “Nora” I could hide somewhere for him to discover. All my searching only brought up one little used bear – that had already been sold to some scoundrel making off with my boy’s bear.

Apparently that little bear was no longer made and this momma was left to simply pray, pray for this silly, but oh so valuable, bear.  I prayed on many occasions – prompted by my little one’s random longings for his sweet friend.  Of course I also continued to search, but finally concluded that we must have left Nora somewhere when we were out.  I hadn’t the slightest where, and this sweet friend had now been away for nearly a year. 

Then one day, as suddenly as the morning light breaks through the darkness presenting us with a new day, one of my girls exclaimed that she had found Nora. Same little bear without a voice due to her unfortunate (but extremely necessary) bath in the washing machine.  

The curious part of the whole discovery was that Miss Nora had been found sitting up, positioned just as if someone had placed her there in a very narrow closet in the living room. The “closet” was actually designed to be a liquor cabinet when the house was built in the 1970’s – small, narrow and an impossible place for something to hide – particularly in plain sight as it was. 

Add the fact that I had cleaned out that liquor cabinet / closest, since Nora had been lost and it was even more improbable.  Moreover, I had recently searched for Nora there. 

Yet, there she was sitting up on a shelf, in plain sight.  Now one might be tempted to draw the conclusion that I hadn’t looked very well, cleaned it out very thoroughly or perhaps she was pushed behind something else.  That is simply NOT the case...I even enlisted the help of a close friend to search for Nora, thinking a new set of eyes might discover what I had missed...nothing.

It would be easy to imagine one of the girls stealing the bear back, but not easy at all to think she could have hidden it for a year.  And my husband?  Sure, maybe; I already told you he was not a fan of his boy carrying around a pink bear.  But why, then, would he have purposed to pay "whatever it costs" to get a replacement?

Truly, the only conclusion that is left to me is that God cares so passionately for his children, and the prayers of their well-meaning parents that He would trouble Himself to arrange a little pink bear ever so carefully on a shelf so as not to be missed – or perhaps send an angel to do so.  Truly the name "Emanuel" is so well-suited.  He really is "God with us."