Whew!

 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ Luke 15:9

Readers may remember this verse from the parable of the Lost Coin. It's appropriate!  After I wrote last, I had another bout of ill health, and when I was feeling better, tried to log on - and couldn't!  Weeks of searching the same files, the same notebooks followed - to no avail. Finally, today - I have it, and so we begin again.  

The weeks of inability to post have been interesting.  I've missed writing, even though I have no idea that anyone is actually reading this.  I trust that whoever can be blessed by it will find it at the proper time.  That part of it is out of my hands, and that's ok by me.

The repeated searches have prompted me to  begin what I've long been meaning to do: organize.  Organization comes naturally to many people; clearly, I am not one of them.  Finding ways to organize my materials and information more effectively has been challenging, not that I've completed the task.  If I made New Year's resolutions, this would be a good one.  

The verse I chose for today was a bit tongue-in-cheek, given my long predicament, but not entirely so.  The idea of lost and found is both familiar and profound.  We often claim to have lost things, though usually we've only mislaid them.  I sometimes wonder if anything is really 'lost.'

We take a wrong turn when traveling and get lost; yet we eventually get to our destination.  Our loved ones pass on, losing their lives so to speak - only they live on in spirit in a life far more joyful and glorious than earthly life could hope to be.  We lose our faith - or so we think.

I am not so sure that anyone loses their faith.  I know people who discount faith, preferring the theories of science to those of theology.  I know people who have faltered in their faith, rendered doubtful by the enormity of their pain.  I know people who reject faith, angered by the injustices they observe around them - injustices a loving God would not allow, they reason.  

But lose faith?  Does anyone wake up one day simply to realize that - the faith of yesterday has left?  I doubt that.  In my experience, faith never deserts us.  We may look the other way, we may mislay it in unrelated events and circumstances, we may furiously cast it aside - but those are very different situations.  Faith doesn't evaporate. Like God, it is with us always.  We have only to recognize it, then, like the widow, we too may rejoice.