the girl on the corner…

“For there is nothing lost, but may be found, if sought… ”

She stood there, in the heat of the afternoon, at the corner of a busy intersection near Wal Mart.  I watched her briefly from my air-conditioned car.  Hair pulled back, shirt damp, backpack resting at her feet.  Her sign said, “broke, need food, anything helps.”  I couldn’t look too closely without my heart aching for this lost soul.  She was someone’s daughter.  At some point in her life she belonged to someone, belonged somewhere.

How did she end up here?  Is someone searching for her now?

Those are questions that went through my mind as I waited for the light to change.  I don’t know her personal situation, but I’m sure it is similar to mine.  Okay, I wasn’t literally out on the corner near the Wal Mart. Thankfully, no.  But the road I chose, many years ago, led me far from home.  I had wandered off for a while and found myself wondering, “How did I end up here?”

I’ve thought about that young girl on the corner  many times today.  Wondering, will she be found?  Will He find her?  and there is no possible way that I can know the answers.  But I’ll tell you what I do know.

I’ve been found…

from John, the parable of the lost sheep…

¹⁰ “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. ¹¹For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.
¹² “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? ¹³ And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. ¹⁴ Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.