Lost and Found

A dear friend's beautiful and beloved Siberian Husky dug out from her yard, and escaped. Her owners were in utter despair. They stayed up all night looking for her. They asked for help putting out flyers to alert area businesses and neighbors to keep an eye out for the dog.

I don't live far from them, so I offered to help. I biked to their house, calling the dog's name as I biked the 6 miles there. Then I picked up flyers, and meandered towards home, taping flyers and filling mailboxes with flyers along my route home. When I passed wooded spots or creeks, I called out her name. If I was a dog, that is where I would go for my walkabout.

Many flyers were already posted in the area. These friends are awesome dog lovers and people so I was not alone in helping them. Several of their friends rallied, disseminating flyers about the dog, and posting her picture on their Facebook pages. I biked to a Greenway, and was by now pretty hot and tired, having been biking two hours. I started to tape a flyer on a tree when a man on a bike stopped.
"Can I help?" he asked.
"Sure," I told him, handing him flyers to post at the opposite end of the Greenway. My heart exploded with love for the kindness of strangers. (and sweat, and gratitude. I was near the end of my energy. Praise God for others to take up the baton!)

I slept almost not at all the night after posting the flyers. My heart was burdened for my friends. I prayed for "Suzie" many hours over my insomniac journey that night. Then Monday morning, I awoke after very little sleep. It was my day to minister as a pro-life sidewalk counselor at the abortion mill. I was feeling unusually vulnerable, probably in part from having slept very little. It is not an easy ministry, and I always must steel myself for the struggle and battle before me. I always spend an hour in prayer before I depart. The very first thing I do is my online Bible studies, and then I check my email and Facebook posts. Then I pray, and pray, and pray! The first Facebook post was from my friend who owns Suzie. It said: "She is home!!!" The dog that was lost was found!

I cannot tell you what a joy that was to me. And it was such an encouragement, this message from God. She who is lost will be found. Go! Go forth and speak to the people who feel there is no hope, who feel utterly lost in their dire circumstances. She who is lost WILL be found.

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Matthew 10:6

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Luke 15:4 

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?

1 Timothy 2:4 

Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Lamentations 3:22-23

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.