Reconciliation: Lost Things

Stone Spiral

Some times I feel like I am walking in circles. I spend so much time looking for lost things and I retrace my steps over and over looking for the thing I have misplaced or lost. The real frustration of all this activity is that I usually find the thing I'm so desperately searching for when I least expect it (and, sigh...not when I need it). I am perplexed by several things which I have lost lately. One very important item I have lost recently is the cord that transfers pictures from my camera to the computer. I have searched for it everywhere I can think of and I suspect I have thrown it into the trash by mistake. I wish I could just remember when I last saw it, but alas, I am growing older and ...

The awareness of "creeping senility" is supplemented by another lost item - my double pointed knitting needles. I picked them up recently (last week) to move them - I remember having them in my hand, but you guessed it, I can't remember where I put them! I have looked in and under all the usual places but cannot find them. I wonder if the "prodigal" needles will come home or should I make a trip to the store to replace them. I think of the parables that Jesus told about "lost" things: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son (Luke 15). My angst over mundane things like a camera cord and knitting needles is less than noteworthy compared to God's grief when we become lost from God. We wander, we stray, we go to "foreign" countries; and then in those grace - filled moments of revelation we see how far we are from home. It is in those moments that we, like the prodigal son, run toward God. It always startles me to find God running in my direction to meet me.

I remember studying the parable of the "Lost Son" and realizing that for the father to run to the son who returned, he had to lift his robe. Showing one's legs in that culture was an embarrassment. But the father was so longing for the son's return that this embarrassment was nothing to him. In the same way God gives up every thing to pursue us. I am grateful...

Well, I am now on to the big event of today - trying to catch Pumpkin to put her in her carrier for a trip to the vet. It's her yearly physical and usually results in a lot of drama. But what are Mondays for...?