It was a chilly day for mid-August, and the sun was trying hard to break through the clouds, as a butterfly out of a cocoon, to flood us with its warm embracing rays. I had just gotten off work at around 11:30a.m.,soit felt amazing to simply sit down torelax. The only problem was that there was something nagging me at the back of my head. I had lost my retainer, and hadn’t worn it for over two weeks.As I ran my tongue over my teeth, I felt that my teeth had already moved quite quickly, so I was in a pretty bad predicament.  I had to find it, and fast! But it was the glorious summer vacation, I had just gotten off work, and the taste of my lemonade was so sweet against my lips. It looked like the sun was finally winning its battle with the clouds. Who needs a retainer anyway, right?
Then, all of a sudden, there she was. My mother, and it looked like she had something to say. I’m always scared when she approaches me because it seems like every time she talks to me she gives me a job to do, or makes me think of things she told me to do,yet, I that I haven’t done. So, when I saw her open her mouth,I internally tensed up, but smiled at her.She then commented how nice my smile looks now that my braces are off, seeming to forget whatever she came to say. As always I agree and say it feels really good.Then she ask the dreaded question.
“So you’ve been wearing your retainer?”
I thought about telling her that I lost it, but decided against it because I knew how mad she’d get. Think of a classic cartoon freak-out from rage, where the characters face becomes beat-red, steam flowing out of its ears, and jumping up and down. So I simply replied that yes, I’ve been wearing it. Obviously! But inside of me there was a war going on.  I’vetold mom too many white lies and their weight just keeps pilling on top of me. I felt so guilty as well and nervous that I started to fidget. Finally, three seconds later I heard myself saying:
“No. I lied. I lost it and I haven’t worn it for over two weeks…”
As I had imagined, she completely freaked out, looking like a bull ready to charge on me to come strangle me. It took her a few seconds to cool down so that she could finaly startasking me a zillion questions for any clues of where it could have been. I told her the only thing that I was absolutely one hundred percent positive about, was that it wasin a Ziploc bag. Together, we tear through the van looking in every crack and cranny since that was the last place I remember seeing it. Not finding it, Mom suggested that she might know where it could be since she had recently cleaned the van. Since we were at Cavendish KOA, we hoped in the van and in a cold, awkward silence, drove the five minutes to our house.
I tipped it over, its contentsflied everywhere. “Gross!” I thought. I ran to my dad’s workshop to grab plastic gloves andreluctantly started sifting through all of the cr*p. Literally! I was going through the big waste bin. Yes you read correctly. A garbage bin Island Waste Management provides all of the homes on Prince Edward Island with. A garbage bin that, might I add, hadn’t been emptied for three weeks because we were at the campgroundand never home.I could clearly smell the three weeks’ worth of accumulation was getting to be a pile of extremely pungent waste which consisted of cat litter, take-out, and anything else that you can imagine is in a waste bin.

I just wanted to find the darn thing in there so that I knew I hadn’t gone through the nasty thing for nothing. As I was looking for my retainer, I started to cry from guilt  and also because I rememberedMom telling me that if I didn’t find it, I had to pay for a new one. Although, I knew thatI was going to find it, because had put all of my trust in God to help me find it. So there I was, praying the most I had ever prayed to God in my whole lifewhile my head was stuck in a garbage container! He sure was getting an earful of prayers that were all something like this:
“God, thank you so much for the uncountable blessings you have given me!Please God help me find my retainer in this DISGUSTING garbage can! You are amazing, incredible, and indescribable; I am so blessed to know you! I promise to be a better Christian; to read my Bible, not give in to sin and stay true to the person that you want me to become. Help me in my time of need.”
Just as I was getting to the bottom, I headed inside to take a little break, but more importantly to text someone. It was one of my counsellors from Canoe Cove Christian Camp who I’m pretty close to, and asked her if she could pray for me to find something that I had lost. She read it, and was in the middle of texting me to say she was praying for me at that moment, when the unbelievable happened. Mom busted in through the garage door and told me that as she was leaving to return to KOA, quickly looked in the bin, and saw a Wal-Mart bag with a Ziploc bag poking through it. The next thing I knew, she lifted up a Ziploc bag holding my retainer in it! Someone a kilometre away would have probably heard my screams of joy! It probably sounded like I had just won the lottery! I knew that if I just put some trust in Him, He could do anything! I truly believe that those few words that I texted to my friend saying that I needed His and her help, helped me find my lost retainer.