When being a loser of things helps you find the most important thing!

She comes as we're having lunch today a bit frazzled. Seems she lost her driver's license and she can't figure out where it is. She's been in my life since I can remember... my friend's mom. I've eaten her meat dishes (that's any casserole with meat in it) and spent many a night in the room across the hall from her listening to records and giggling until my stomach hurt. There are two things she always has in her purse... lipstick and tissues. Her glove compartment is always full of sunglasses... mostly broken ones. Who knew so many pairs could fit into such a small space?

We spent our lunch talking about where the driver's license might be. The places she'd been. I looked in her purse and through the car. Phone calls were made but none of our ideas turned up what had been lost. As she left I whispered a prayer. Yes, I pray about lost things. I pray about lost things because I am the biggest loser I know. Becoming a driver taught me one of my best known talents... losing keys. I've been frazzled and worried and spent hours trying to find things I've lost. It always leaves me feeling irresponsible. I've watched others shake their head and say, "I just don't understand how you lose stuff." All the while I'm thinking, I just don't understand how one never loses stuff.

There were times I determined to never lose something again. My plan was to be organized... leave the keys in the same place at home. Be more like those who just never seem to lose a thing. The plan might work for a while, but in the end, at some point I went right back to being a loser. The deal is my brain just doesn't work that way. Try as I might putting myself into a mold that doesn't fit just won't work. So... I pray about lost things. I gave up the irresponsible label and the worry and when something is lost--I look... I pray... and I wait. No, I don't always get the answer I want. Sometimes I find the things I'm looking for... other times I don't. Sometimes its years later and I don't even own the car anymore, but I did find the keys.

My friend's mom calls as I finish cooking dinner. I see her name on the screen and answer, "You found it!" We laugh with relief over the silliness of misplacing things. I hung up the phone and find myself rejoicing over something God is teaching me. Every single circumstance where I find myself lacking is the very place God fills up. Fitting myself into some other mold just won't do, in the end it just leaves me living in a place where enough is never enough. This fault in me, when given to Him, leaves me free to be a finder of lost things. It gives me the opportunity to understand those who might just be losers too. 

We are all looking for it. The whole wide world searching for a place to belong... a place to connect. His nail scarred hands reconnected us to God and our scars can do the same for others. The very thing we wish we weren't, the circumstance we would change if we could, the illness, divorce, addiction... just might be the one place where God reveals himself to us and to others. This revealing is what we're all longing for... the source of all our searching. When we search for Him there's no doubt we'll find what we're looking for. And when we do---well, that's the one thing that can never be lost.