Lost and Found

My husband, Jerry, and I were living in Lamar, Colorado, USA, in our first pastoral district after leaving the seminary. Jerry was gone for the day, making some visits. I stayed home with our two children and another little boy, the son of some of our church members, who had come to play with our son. The two little boys, aged four and five, were playing on a vacant lot directly across the street from our house, happily digging in some dirt piles. We lived on a dead-end street with no traffic. I did my best to keep a close eye on them while also taking care of our baby. After a while, I glanced out the window and did not see them in the vacant lot. I searched for them in the yard and the neighborhood. We were a one-car family, and this was long before cell phones, so I had to wait for Jerry to come home before we could finally drive around and search further for the two little boys. We called the visiting boy’s mother, who also started to search, and eventually we notified the police. They, too, began to search.

As evening approached and a predicted storm started to move in, the police put out an announcement on the radio. A pastor from another denomination heard the radio announcement and decided to join the search.

Before too long he spotted two little boys that fit the description he had heard on the radio. They were happily playing in a churchyard. He brought them home to some very relieved parents! Their explanation? They needed a shovel in the other little boy’s garage. Never mind that they had to walk nearly a mile and cross a busy highway to get there.

And, of course, talking to me about their plan would have been a really good idea! Thinking of this story reminds me of the story Jesus told about the shepherd searching for his one lost sheep (Luke 15:1–7) and these words: “The darker and more tempestuous the night and the more perilous the way, the greater is the shepherd’s anxiety and the more earnest his search.”* Nothing else mattered until the one little lamb was safely back in the fold. Knowing how I felt at the sight of those two boys safe and sound helps me understand a little about how Jesus, the Good Shepherd, must feel when His sheep return safely to the fold.

He says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep” Luke 15:6 (NIV).

Sharon Oster

* Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, DC: Review and Herald®, 1900), 187.