Parable of the Lost Sheep

Parable of the Lost Sheep

12 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! 14 In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish.  (Matthew 18:12-14 NLT)

I originally named the blog Sheep #47.  Why 47?  Not sure.  I kept thinking 84, 27, both have to do with my birthday, but that 47 kept coming back around.  So I figured there was a reason.  No idea why yet. 😉

The Parable of the Lost Sheep above has to be one of my favorite parables.  Possibly THE favorite.  It has a lot to do with my story.  We live in South Carolina (for anyone who didn’t know), and lucky/unlucky for us, we live in a coastal area.  Well, apparently, it is prone to hurricanes.  Not so much before we moved here and not so much in our first years here, but after I joined the police department, we proceeded to have evacuation orders multiple years in a row.  Crazy stuff.  One thing no one really thinks about when they both decide to be law enforcement and then bring a child into the world is that if there’s an evacuation order, YOU don’t get to leave, but your CHILD has to have someone to take care of them.  Oops. 

Lucky for us, we have some family in the mid-state, so they graciously have taken Austin in multiple times when this situation arises.  He would to go to Sunday school with them and come back and tell us how awesome it was.  We decided that if he liked it so much, maybe we should start taking him.  That fact led me to signing up for overtime security details at one of the churches in our area.  Before I knew it, it didn’t feel like work at all.  I’d arrive on Sundays with a smile on my face and by the last service, I was singing along “gold and silver you can take it, all I want is you, my Lord.”  See here.  I don’t think I noticed at the time what was happening, but I have always believed that we end up where we’re supposed to be and at the right times we’re supposed to be there.  Now, I know it is because of God’s will, rather than just some unknown force.  

Even on the weekends that I wasn’t working overtime, I would go with my family to that church.  Austin would go to kids’ church and David and I would go to the service together.  One particular day, the worship band played a song called “Reckless Love.”  (See here)  Before the song, they explained the Parable of the Lost Sheep.  The idea that God will leave the others behind to come rescue the one.  That ONE is ME.  It’s YOU.  The idea that I hid behind for so long that I was not good enough, that my shortcomings made it impossible for God to love me, that if I could just make sure I prayed every day, or did this or did that….I realized right then and there that God was coming to rescue me and I didn’t have to do anything because there was never anything I could do that would amount to the gift of His Grace anyway.  And I can’t even begin to tell you the relief I felt.  It was shortly after that that I prayed for salvation in that same room….and it has made all the difference in my life.