13 Oct Lost and Found

It was a lazy Saturday and we were about to leave the house to join some neighbors on an apple picking trip. I asked my daughter Abigail to bring her bunny Fuzzy inside so that we could head out. A few moments later, I heard her voice choking back sobs as she burst in the door to announce, “Fuzzy is gone!”

Every member of our family sprang into action. We began to comb our yard and our next door neighbors’ yards looking for our lost bunny. After some time had passed with still no sign of Fuzzy, we realized we needed to call in reinforcements. I made a few quick texts to neighborhood friends and quickly assembled a large crew to join the search.

I gave baby carrots to some of the children while hearing one of them share, “Fuzzy has a lot of followers on Instagram. He’s pretty famous for a bunny.” This comment brought a much-needed laugh into an otherwise serious moment. With every moment that passed, our hearts experienced the full spectrum of emotions from defiant hope to the dread of potential defeat and loss.

In the midst of these varying emotions, prayer centered our hearts on God. We cried out to our Heavenly Father to guide our eyes towards our lost bunny, to grant us the desire of our hearts that he would be brought back into our family where he belongs.

When more than a few hours had passed since he first left his outdoor cage, I heard a yell from down the street: “I found him!” All twenty or so of us who had been looking came running towards the sound of the voice, who we discovered to be my husband. He was in a neighbor’s backyard four doors down, his head peering under a shed.

There in the small space between the bottom of the shed and the ground was Fuzzy, apparently enjoying the shade of the shed on a hot day and oblivious to both his lostness and the turmoil his departure had caused us. All our friends gathered around my daughter Abigail in anticipation as she pulled her beloved bunny from the darkness and into the light. The cheering and rejoicing over Fuzzy’s reunion with our family was both tangible and communal.

A Worthy Pursuit

The next morning, I woke with a story from Scripture in my heart. Flipping through the pages of my Bible, I quickly found the words I was looking for in Luke 15:

“So Jesus told them this story:  “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” (vs. 3-7).

Another story which comes shortly after the one of the lost sheep is about a son. A son who had run away and squandered his inheritance. In a place of desperation, he came to his senses and realized how good he had it in his father’s house. As he set his heart towards home, he rehearsed his speech of repentance. But while he was still a long way off, His father saw him, felt compassion, and began to run towards his son.

The father’s act of forgiveness went above and beyond. His love was unconditional. Rather than asking his son to pay back all the money he had spent, he gave his son his best robe, sandals, and a ring for his finger, declaring the day a time for feasting and celebration over his return.

My eyes filled with tears as I read these words. Fuzzy’s story is all our story and we can each find ourselves somewhere within it. We have all at one time or another in our lives been lost – separated from God and without hope.

Perhaps you find yourself in the search party alongside Abigail. Those who were helping her look weren’t looking for their bunny; they were looking for Abbey’s bunny to return to her. Perhaps you have friends or family members in the Shadowlands whom you long to see reconciled to God. Perhaps while you seek and pray, you, like those of us in Fuzzy’s search party, waver between hope and defeat.

To you I believe God would say don’t ever give up. A rescue may be right around the corner.

Perhaps you are still in a place where, like Fuzzy, you seek comfort in the darkness and don’t believe you are lost at all. But God, because of the great love with which He loves you, even if you do not yet recognize your need for Him, has set His heart on pursuing you, even sending others to graciously nudge you towards the light of His loving embrace.