Amazing Grace.. or How Chinny once was lost but now he's found..

We have a hermit crab at our house that is Paige's pride and joy. We got him for her because she was begging for a puppy and at the time he seemed like a cleaner alternative. She got him soon after I told her the story of the three little pigs which is where he got his name, you know, as in "not by the hair of my chinny chin chin"? Anyway, she loves the creepy little guy and carries him everywhere, often builds him homes, draws pictures and tapes them to his aquarium so he can enjoy them, and tries to call and check on him when we are traveling. He has become a part of our family because she loves him. (Now I should preface this story with the admission that Chinny is actually Chinny the Second, but she doesn't know it. The first Chinny died while we were out of town and after seeing her reaction a few months before that when Mickey her fish passed on, I sent Mike immediately to the store to find a replacement before she noticed)

Last weekend she was playing with her beloved pet and set him on the counter without putting him in his cage. We didn't notice and left the house for a couple of hours. When we got home, Mike noticed that he wasn't in his cage and asked Paige where he could be. She immediately started to panic, and cry. Loudly. "where could he be? This is all my fault. He is such a little guy, he doesn't have any food, he doesn't have any water, we have to find him.." We grabbed a flashlight and started hunting. We looked under every piece of furniture, pulled out the washer and drier, checked behind the couches, we were all over the house, even Mia put some time in, calling out, "sinny, sinny, whay ah you??" to no avail. Finally after an hour, I told Paige it was time for bed. She began to sob. I have never seen her that upset before, her little body shook as she lay on daddys lap. It was heart wrenching to watch. I felt so helpless. Mike and I were sure we would find a dead Chinny in a few weeks while we were cleaning out the closet or something but I didn't want to tell her that. Finally, I suggested maybe we could say a prayer to help her feel better. She said "ya mom, but you say it, I need to rest my voice from all the crying", so I did. I prayed that Chinny would be blessed, that he wouldn't feel hungry and that Paige would be able to sleep well despite her heartache. She finally cried herself out and I went to spend a few minutes updating my status on facebook to announce that we were missing a brother at our house. All of a sudden I heard a tap tap tapping on the floor at my feet. Sure enough, there was Chinny, underneath the computer tower. How he got there I will never know, it was only a quarter inch off the floor, and how I didn't find him when I looked there earlier is beyond me. All I know is that we couldn't find him, we said a prayer and then we found him. Now, as I sit here, a few days past the event, I cannot say with any certainty that we had a miracle in our home, but that night, as I set Chinny in his cage and ran to wake Paige and let her know that he was safe, I felt very strongly that even though losing a hermit crab seemed to me to be very insignificant in the grand scheme of life, it wasn't to her. And it wasn't to Him.