One woman is grateful for the Greenville, South Carolina, employees who went to great lengths to find her wedding ring after it fell into a dumpster.

Weddings are beautiful ceremonies in which two people pledge to stick with one another through life’s ups and downs, through the good and the bad. Of course, everyone knows that in addition to the vows during the ceremony, rings are exchanged. The rings are a sign of that never-ending commitment, becoming valuable and cherished pieces of jewelry because of that significance.

So, when Melanie Harper loses her wedding ring, it’s easy to imagine the terror and dread she must have felt. She was placing trash in a recycle bin when the ring slipped off her finger and into the endless sea of recyclable material. 

“After I didn’t find it, in my head, I imagined that Price is Right game, Plinko,” she said. “And the ring just like plinking down to the bottom.”

Melanie, trying to recover the ring, reached out to the Greenville, South Carolina Department of Public Works. The department’s supervisor had empathy for Melanie. He put himself in her position and then made a decision.

They spilled out the contents of the container all over the parking lot and then began searching through the trash, looking for the lost ring. The odds of ever ringing something so small are minuscule, next to zero, right?

Well, Travis Golden did happen to find the ring!

After the ring was recovered and returned to Melanie, she met up with the men to express her sincere gratitude. 

Praise God for their kind and diligent efforts. That would have been a devastating loss if that ring had been lost forever. 

What a terrific example of how our efforts and hard work can and do directly impact the lives of others.

Proverbs 18:9 “He who does not give his mind to his work is brother to him who makes destruction.”