Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ Luke 15:6-9 (NIV)
My husband has a career that requires annual recertification. He has stacks of papers listing all the courses he has taken as well as a few diplomas. While some people might have them framed above their desk, he is an unassuming man and prefers to let his current work performance speak for itself. Over time, those certificates were boxed up and stashed somewhere. This week, we had an urgent need to find them. He had to prove that he had attended college courses in his field. I spent several days looking in all the obvious places for his diploma. I recalled that it was framed, so thought it might be somewhere around the computer, perhaps leaning up against a wall. No luck. I checked a variety of places, some logical and some not. It was a long shot that a diploma would have been behind my dresser in the bedroom, but I peeked back there and saw only many years worth of dust. We located a print out listing the courses and noting his completion, but the agency we were working with insisted upon seeing the actual diploma. So, I searched again only to come up empty handed. The frustrating thing was that I remembered seeing that diploma sometime in the recent past. I just could not picture where, and time was running out. As usually happens with me, at last I resorted to prayer. After reminding God how important this was to my husband’s future and asking His help, a clear image came in my mind of a cardboard box way in the back of our attic filled with old picture frames. It took me about twenty minutes to wind my way to the very back of the attic. I had to move a lot of boxes and some furniture. The fact that the empty bins of Christmas decorations blocked my way did not help either. Then, in the dark, I spied a box exactly like the one I envisioned in exactly the place that I knew it would be. There, in the front was a broken picture frame with shattered glass and behind that glass, my husband’s diploma. My husband was amazed that I found it, but I made sure he knew that it was only the result of prayer. “God showed me where to find it,” I stated. It was an encouragement to know that God cared enough about him to help us find this very important paper. Jesus told this story of another woman who lost something and kept on searching until she found it to illustrate God’s love for all of us and how He wants each of us to become part of His family. You may not believe it, but the Maker of Heaven and Earth will not be satisfied until you are part of His family. He will continue to eagerly wait until you make a choice to trust in Him. Don’t delay. Who knows how much more time you may have?
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