Our Lost Sheep

Good morning, Five Minute Families. In Luke 15 we read the parable of the lost sheep. If a sheep has wandered, which they are prone to do, the shepherd leaves the rest of the flock in a safe space and searches until he finds the one lost sheep. I was taken back to when our two oldest sons decided to walk from Maryland to Tennessee. Mind you, they were six and four years old. They gathered their gear and set off. Annnnd, they promptly got lost. The boys had been playing on our screened-in back porch inside our closed-gate, fenced-in back yard, and their shoes were off. Kim went inside to tend to their infant brother. In less than ten minutes, they were gone. When I saw that their shoes, blanket, and snack goldfish were gone, I immediately knew that something was wrong. I called for them, knocking on neighbors’ doors as I ran frantically through the neighborhood. Then, two neighbors told Kim they had seen the boys at the front of the house on our dead end street and one remarked that a car had driven down, turned around, and then he didn’t see the boys again. We called the police. As minutes ticked away, I began bargaining with God. “Lord, if they have been taken, please please let it be by someone who so desperately wants to have children that they are simply not in their right mind. Lord, if you will allow this to be the case, if they have been taken, I will accept never seeing them again.” As I drove around, I prayed for the safety of my sons. God had seen us through difficult moments before, so I knew that I could place my trust in Him. At some point, I placed our infant son into the caring arms of an elder neighbor who could not help search but was willing to hold a screaming child for almost an hour as we searched. Twenty-one adults and that many (or more) children helped us search. The police sent out a unit, and nearby family came to sit with us. The police officer went to check a sighting before coming to us. A construction worker who had stayed onsite as the others fanned out to search waved m