THAT WHICH IS LOST (extra entry)

“Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?”  (Luke 15:8)

“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10)

Is God trying to tell me I need to be more concerned for the lost?  Maybe.  At the very least, today’s happenings may make a good future sermon illustration on a Luke 15 sermon.  My late father did not handle it well when he lost something.  He was not one of those who could just “forget about it” or “don’t think about it and it will just show up”.  Not him.  When something was lost, it was a dire emergency and life itself stopped until it was found.  I hate to admit it but I’m EXACTLY the same way.

My present pair of eyeglasses came with 2 pairs of clip-on sunglasses.  Each pair of clip-ons actually clipped on and functioned a little bit differently.   On September 18 of last year, the day before my birthday, I literally ran for the train back to Framingham at Back Bay Station in Boston.  Five minutes after I got on the train (huffing and puffing) I sadly realized one of my pairs of clip-ons in it’s case had been dropped as I ran for the train.  I was pretty “bummed out” about it, but since I did have ANOTHER pair of clip-ons in another case, I figured they would just have to do.  (I liked the pair I lost in Sept. the best.)  Today, I lost the other pair of clip-ons!

This morning, I took a walk from the church to the library and the post office in downtown Framingham.  I like to go to the library to read the Bible devotionally- so no one will disturb me.  I walked into the library wearing my clip-ons.  When I took them off, I was a little disturbed that I could not find their case which is usually in my pocket.  I laid the clip-ons on a desk and did some Bible reading.  I put the clip-ons back on the glasses and walked to the post office.  I opened up the church’s post office box and retrieved the mail.  I then walked back to the church.

I noticed that in an area of the church parking lot that does not get any sun, there was still some snow from Sunday’s little snowstorm.  I decided to get a broom and sweep the snow away, which I did.  I spent some time working, and went to go home for lunch.  I was about to put my clip-ons on, but there were no clip-ons.  I looked “everywhere” for them.  I drove to the post office, and asked a clerk if any clip-on sunglasses had been turned in, but was told “no”.  I saw little need to go back to the library, but just to satisfy my curiosity, I did drive to the library.  Amazingly, I found the sunglass CASE on the floor of the library near where I’d been sitting.  So I DID have the case with me after all.  I’m not sure how the case fell on the floor.

I really DO know I wore those clip-ons out of the library, but I have no memory of what I did with them.  It’s really frustrating.  I got those eyeglasses in late May of 2005.  I managed to have and take care of the two pairs of clip-ons from May 2005 to September 2006, but now in the past four months, I’ve lost both pairs!  The brightness outside really bothers me, and I hate that I don’t have those sunglasses.

I know I dropped the other pair and its case as I ran for the train in Boston in September, and I have consoled myself that it was an accident, but today’s incident seems just plain stupid and senseless.  I realize it’s not on the level of people dying in Iraq or kids getting cancer or things like that.  But it just BUGS me!  I can’t stop thinking about it.  It’s a real mystery.  Where did those clip-ons go?   Will they turn up?