Love Letters, a Journal, and Jeans
Clara and Wesley’s Sunday School teacher taught the parable of the lost coin on Sunday. It was an appropriate day for me to hear it, because it had been a lost and found sort of weekend for me. A couple of weeks ago, it was lost puppets. This weekend it’s been love letters, a journal, and jeans — among other things.
Early last week, as Mother and I sat waiting for her cardiologist to come into the examining room, I got an out-of-the-blue phone call from a friend. When I returned her call after the appointment, she asked me if we would consider renting Mother’s house to her daughter.
I love it when God provides an answer to agonizing concerns in a way that is totally unexpected. This was one of those answers.
I have felt terrible that Mother’s house has been sitting empty for over a year. Ray and I have brought cherished keepsakes and things Mother could use to our house, and my brother has taken keepsakes to his house, too. However, I have never felt like I had time to go through everything and I was very aware that there were more treasures hidden there, including some particularly precious ones. The friend said that her daughter could help us with the process.
On Friday, Ray, my niece, and I spent many hours sifting for treasures in Mother’s house. When we left late Friday night, my niece’s car was full and our friend’s Suburban which we had borrowed for the day was full, too. My friend’s daughter has agreed to throw away the bags of garbage we left in the kitchen floor, do as she wishes with the garage sale items we left in a couple of designated places, use the living room furniture and my parents’ bedroom suite until we decide that someone in the family has a spot for the bedroom suite, box up and label everything else that is left, take all those things to a storage unit we have rented, and give the house a deep cleaning — all in exchange for the first month’s rent! Now we can take all the time we need to search through the storage unit for lost treasures.
From my impression after talking to our renter, we both feel like we got a great bargain!
As Ray, my niece, and I sifted through piles and piles of piles and piles, we found a picture of my grandfather when he was a little boy, my brother’s baby book, and many other treasures, including the box of love letters my daddy wrote to my mother while he was in the Army and she was expecting me. That was one of the particularly precious things I had hoped most that we would find.
As Ray and I prepared to leave on Friday morning, I searched to no avail for my only pair of blue jeans. Ray kept saying, I’ve seen them somewhere . . . On Saturday, while we were preparing for our fall celebration, I stumbled across my jeans lying on top of a laundry basket full of toys on the buffet in the dining room. Isn’t that where everyone stores their jeans? That is a testimony to how busy we were last weekend during the play.
Later that same day I found a missing earring lying beside our suitcases in the closet and then almost immediately turned around and saw my precious journal where I write down the cute things the grandchildren do. It had been missing for a week! Part of my heart wanted to agonize over that one, but I kept telling myself it was sure to turn up. Again, play busyness was the culprit. It was in the toy bag that went back and forth to play practice.
Touched by the King also told a couple of lost and found stories. I already told you about an imagined scene when Peter confronted Matthew for working for the Romans as a tax collector. Peter also told Matthew to be sure that money was not all he was living for.
Not long afterward, when the Pharisees went to the home of Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, to complain about Jesus healing the paralyzed man on the Sabbath day, the three men discussed the fact that Jesus was at that very moment at Matthew’s house. They were actually shocked that Jesus would eat with sinners!
The next day as the women of Capernaum went to the well to draw water . . .
. . . and (because this was a musical) to sing a traditional song and do an Israeli dance around the well, . . .
. . . Huldah told her friend Joanna about the amazing thing that had happened to her the night before.
Huldah (cautiously, making sure no one else is listening): Joanna?
Joanna: What is it, Huldah?
Huldah: I ate with Jesus last night.
Joanna: You what?
Huldah: I ate with Jesus. He invited me to come. We ate at the home of Matthew the tax collector. But Matthew isn’t a tax collector any more. He is following Jesus now.
Joanna: But why did Jesus invite you?
Huldah: Because He knows how wicked I have been. I didn’t even have to tell Him. He just knew.
Joanna: And He invited you anyway?
Huldah: That is why He invited me. Last night He said that it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. My soul has been sick for a long time, but He said I can start over. He forgave me of everything. He didn’t come here just to heal the blind and the lame. He came to heal hearts that were broken — like mine. . . . His words have given me life and hope. Those are things I haven’t had for a very long time.
Homeschooling mamas, let’s give all our lost things to the One Who came to seek and to save the most important lost things — us, the people we love, and all the other people in the whole wide world.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save
that which was lost.
Luke 19:10