Devotion 306 - Lost

There is a placard hanging in the corner of my mind.  On the top in big bold letters is the word LOST.

Underneath are all the things my family and I have lost in the last few weeks;  including:

Beau’s eyeglasses
My eyeglasses
All the data on my hard drive, some 15 –years of history
A document I desperately needed for work
And, two mates to two earrings that I hoped to lend to a precious friend for a wedding

I am not in the habit of losing things.  I don’t lose keys;  I never misplace money, I keep good care of paperwork and winter mittens and I have only on rare occasions lost my mind.

The first item lost was my son’s glasses.

In the wake of losing these expensive, vision therapeutic glasses, I delivered a speech.  


It had everything to do with avoiding carelessness, being a better steward and I added just a touch of “money doesn't grow on trees.”

Then, I lost my glasses and dropped my laptop, destroying my hard drive.

It was a few days later, a dear friend asked if she could borrow some sparkly, clip earrings.  “No problem,”  I replied.  I inherited my mother’s jewelry case – beautiful drawers filled with lovely costume jewelry and even richer memories.

When I took this jewelry case home some ten years ago after mother passed, I brought with it glorious memories of seeing mother prepare for business dinners with my father.

I have allowed my daughters to play with this jewelry; it’s not worth much in value but has a special generational connection.  Neither of my daughters met my mother, but somehow through my memories and this jewelry I have shared many stories of mother’s grace.

I did realize by letting them play with the jewelry, something might eventually get lost or broken, but our joy somehow overcame this eventuality. 

I went to the case seeking earrings yet every earring I found seemed to be lacking their mates.  I took the single earrings, went to my daughters and asked where the mates might be.  The girls seemed mystified. 

  
I returned to my closet, I prayed and sat in front of the jewelry case.  I opened each drawer.  The smell of the old wood warmed me;  it is the aroma of my childhood home.  I ran my fingers across the red velvet that lined the drawers.  I had been forbidden from playing in these drawers as a wee girl;  I felt clandestine even now.  My daughters have not kept them orderly, but oh the joy of remembering their grandmother.

I reached to the way back of the bottom drawer.  My fingers slipped through a tiny hole.  I had forgotten the bottom drawers had hidden bottoms.  I opened the drawer completely and quickly lifted the insert.  There sat sparkly pins, old rhinestone barrettes, and not one but the two mates to the earrings I sought.

I held them tightly.  There was something so profoundly good about finding;  I hoped I was on a roll.  I told my husband, the glasses, the document, the data were around the corner.

Alas, the corner has never come.

For breakfast every morning, I seemed to be eating my words, carelessness, poor stewardship, every word I had angrily tossed to my son seemed to flavor my mood.

I went to scripture thinking surely there was a lesson.  I envisioned the comforting words of the shepherd finding his lost sheep.  I sought Him in Luke, and found Him not as a shepherd but as a 12-year old boy whose mother had lost her son.

I have read this story dozens of times.  It is the foretelling of Jesus’ ministry, but there is so much more.  When He is found, Jesus’ comments are enigmatic.  His parents do not clearly understand what He is saying or why He departed from their care.  But Mary, scripture says, treasured or pondered  all these things in her heart.  (Luke 2:19)

I have not lost a child, I have not lost my health or my home or my family.I pondered what I have, what I have found.

Slowly,  I rehung my placard.  I replaced the word LOST, with the word FOUND.

On it, I listed these words:

Forgiveness

Joy

Contentment

Salvation

He is the finder of the lost.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost."
Luke 19:10