Lost and Found

A few months ago, in this post, I told the tale of my lost and found Bible. Several of you responded, saying that you’d lost and found something that was important to you, too. Your stories were so heartwarming that I decided to compile some of them into this blog post. Here’s hoping they bless you as much as they did me!

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“After my sister and brother passed in 2013 I looked and looked high and low for a small bundle of cards they had given me. Each contained a message to me. I tore through this house until I finally had to acknowledge I had probably misplaced them and they were tossed out.

Five years…yes five years later I needed to find some retirement papers and in my box that ONLY contained my work and hygiene license document that bundle appeared.

I cried the day I had given up looking for them but I SOBBED that day when I found them. My husband found me on the floor in the closet I haven’t gone into for years. So miracles do happen.” -Denise Bailey

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“When I was baptized I made a “morse code” bracelet with my favorite bible verse out of beads. During my internship at UNC Hospital I realized one day that after visiting patients all day I had lost my bracelet (it must have come off while I was removing my gloves). As soon as I realized it I ran back up to my floors, to no avail. The nurses said they would keep an eye out for it.

A few days later I was back on a floor and one of the nurses asked if I was the one who lost a bracelet….well she had found it in one of the patient’s beds. And she told me she left it on the nurses’ desk taped to the ledge….I ran there but it was GONE!!! I was so upset but as I was walking away I realized I did not have my pen so I reached in the pencil holder and guess what had fallen into the pencil holder? MY BRACELET!!! AHHH! My homemade $5.00 bracelet means so much to me.” -Neils Barringer

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“A lovie blanket came up missing that belonged to our third born. We searched high and low, plus two sheds at my mom’s and her attic. We looked and prayed for months.

At the very beginning of Covid, my mom was laid off and was going through her dad’s shed to just be nosy…and guess what she found?!? The lost lovie! My daughter said, “Momma, I prayed Jesus would point me to it. But he pointed Nana to it…I mean, he wouldn’t tell me to walk ten miles to her house to that shed to look. So he led her.” -Laura Napier

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“A few days before my mother passed away in 2007 from a 6 year battle with cancer she gave me her Bible with all of her handwritten notes from different studies and sermons that spoke to her.

A year or so later my dad asked if he could take it back home with him to go through and make notes from. Somewhere throughout the next few years the Bible had traveled to several different people and he couldn’t remember who had it.

Out of the blue my mom’s childhood best friend Facebook messages me letting me know she had the Bible and all of the notes and knew I would want it! She mailed it back to me and it hasn’t left my house since!” -Amy Parker

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“About two dozen years ago I lost a small blue diamond stud earring that Tony had given me for present. We concluded that my in-laws cats had done something with it. Lost it or eaten it. My sweet father-in-law even went through all the kitty litter boxes looking for it. We came home thinking that it was gone for good.

Several times I asked the Lord to help me find it. About a week later I was drying my hair and I flipped over to get the back of my head and I looked to my right to see, on the OUTSIDE mesh of my toiletry bag, a little blue diamond stud earring. I was amazed. I promise I thought an angel stuck it there. How did the earring survive the trip home? I carried the bag outside my suitcase. In the trunk of the car.

I blessed the Lord so loud. I knew He answered my prayer. Wild!” -Rachel Hauck

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“I was flying to Louisiana from Houston Hobby airport. While at the airport, I took 3 gold rings off, laid them on the counter to wash my hands, and walked out to my flight, leaving them there. One of them was my mother’s wedding band. Flew to NOLA, then drove in to Houma LA about 10 pm. That’s when I realized that I didn’t have my rings on. The other 2 were not as important as my mom’s ring. I was sick. I figured they were gone forever.

I called that night but everyone was gone who I needed to talk to, and the man I did speak with said there wasn’t much chance anyway.

I called in the morning, and the lady said, “Three gold rings? Describe them.” Wow! Someone picked them up and turned them in! There are good people going through airports! And it was my carelessness – but God still cared.” -Debbie Moon

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“When I was in high school, I lost a watch that was very important to me on the way home from a band competition. I was super upset and prayed to find it. I had a dream that I found it underneath the seat in the bus I had been riding.

At our next competition, that specific bus was one of the ones that pulled up. Before it was time to board the buses to leave, I got on that bus, went to that seat, and lifted it up. There was my watch.” -Nicole Allen

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These stories strike a chord with me for two reasons. One, they’re a wonderful reminder that if something is important to us, it’s important to God. He sees and He cares.

Two, they’re a small but tangible example of the greatest lost and found story of them all — the story of our salvation. We were once lost. But we’re indescribably fortunate to have a God who specializes in doggedly pursuing and finding lost things.

If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

-Matthew 18:12-14