If you know me (Sherry) at all, you know that I am notorious for losing things. I lose things weekly and sometimes daily. Many times the things I lose are unimportant--like the earring that I just cannot seem to find. Sometimes the things I lose are a BIG deal. For example, exactly one week before our wedding, I lost an entire set of keys. I remember the day clearly. It was the day I went to pick up my shoes and dress in downtown Homewood. I stopped in a couple of stores to check out bridesmaid gifts. By the time I got back to my car, the keys were gone. I went back to every kind store owner and the keys were nowhere to be found. I had a spare car key, thank goodness, but to this day I have not found the keys that were part of my life before Welles and I got married.
Life goes on. I don't lose my keys very often anymore, because I have developed a system. Today I lost the passport that I had gotten in the mail less than a week ago.
I have never owned a passport. I have been to Mexico and Canada, but in those days you didn't need a passport. Well, we are going on a cruise to celebrate our 5th Anniversary next month, and I went to the post office about a month ago to get a passport. (Side note: be wise like Welles and not foolish like me...if you live in Birmingham, go to the Vestavia Post Office and not the Downtown Post Office. You will save yourself at least an hour and a lot of frustration!) Mine came in the mail a week ago, and I remember seeing it on the cafe table in our kitchen all week. I would look at it sometimes, think, "what a dumb picture," put it back in the envelope that the post office sent me and go on about my day.
Something today told me to put it in the safe. I went to the cafe table, and...where is my passport? I went through the mail stack in the kitchen...no passport. Now my heart is starting to race, "Lord, please help me find my passport," and "Where could it be? Where did I put it?" I looked around for at least 45 minutes. emptied the kitchen trash and sifted through it (it wasn't too bad b/c Welles took the trash out this AM). "Oh no! The trash people came today! Heavenly Father, please do not let it be in the garbage that the trash people took!" Poor Missy was getting anxious, too. I know she would have helped me look if she only knew what a passport was.
Frenzied...near tears...wondering how in the world I will get another in time for our trip...where is my passport...In here? In my dresser? Nope...It was in the cabinet in our office, and I do not for the life remember putting it there.
Losing something that is semi-valuable reminded me of a story from Luke 15 that our Journey group read a few months ago. See below, and although it seems silly, please friends, rejoice with me for finding my passport!
Luke 15
The Parable of the Lost Coin
8"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?
9And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.'
10In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
walking down the aisle...
Ralph and Ann Dewberry (Ralph is the pastor that married us):
