Parable of the lost projects

1 Samuel 25:29 Even when you are chased by those who seek your life, you are safe in the care of the Lord your God, secure in his treasure pouch! But the lives of your enemies will disappear like stones shot from a sling!

This is the tale of the lost things...I think of the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son, but they were not fabric related, so God sent me to this verse as proof to me that He can do anything, like make what I wanted to write about referenced in scripture. He has a word to speak about everything that happens in our lives! This is the parable of the lost projects.

I teach quilting, and when you teach, you have things done in stages, box them up, take them somewhere, show them, put them back in the box and take them home (presumably). My biggest problem is once they are home (if they make it there). They get put somewhere, and thus the problem begins. Where did it go??? I have spent 3 years looking for one of those projects. It was a teal toile that I was using as a sample for cutting 4-patch posie blocks. I looked, asked the boss if I left it at the shop, if maybe they had accidentally thrown out an unassuming box...

I am the queen of the shoe box. My daughter worked at a shoe store...and she also bought way too many shoes from other places. Plus there are 6 of us in this family. Shoe boxes are perfect receptacles for quilting projects. Some other projects need something a little larger, so there were a few of them laying around, filled with other projects. There is a brief description of the project on the outside of the box in Sharpie pen so I can read it clear across the room, if necessary.

I thought I knew the box this thing was in...I really did. It was white, square, and typical looking. Great. Nice description. But I couldn't find it anywhere. I searched the closets, the boxes, everywhere. I even moved everything in that room once cleaning. No signs of it. It was gone. I was disappointed and a little grieved that I would never see how it turned out, but I wasn't panicked. It had served its teaching purpose, and the fabric had only been $1/yd. It was a loss, but not one I couldn't bear. It just disturbed me that I couldn't find it.

But then there was 2 weeks ago. I had borrowed the boss's pattern and tool, taken a bundle of pretty fabric I had bought at market, and was going to teach it that week. I wanted to finish as much of it as I could before class and I was ready to get at it. And I couldn't find it! I had taken it to work to get some of it done if I had the time, and after the first of the 2 days, I brought it home, or so I thought, because I could see I wasn't going to get to it, AND I DIDN'T WANT TO LOSE IT! And for 3 days I looked, I searched, I scoured every corner I could think of. I sewed on other things, and kept looking where I had kept it before taking it from the house. Why had I moved it? Why didn't I put it back? Had I left it? Had the boss put it into the trailer with the other merchandise? Would I have to replace the tools and pattern because what I had lost WASN'T MINE! At least not all of it. And I needed it in 4 days, even if I didn't have it any further than I had it now...I had a purpose for it and that purpose was not yet fulfilled. I HAD to find it.

It is a different thing when you lose what is yours and when you lose that which belongs to another. Having things lost is irritating, frustrating, time consuming, and delaying. You are mad at yourself, anyone who may have moved it, buried it under something (like mail or a purse on top of your keys)! You can't do what you want, are distracted from the thing you were going to do, and sometimes just are stuck, unable to do anything. But when it comes to things that belong to someone else, there is panic. There is loss, and then there is having to pay back, to replace, to explain your carelessness to another. To confess that regardless of how much you tried to take care of what they loaned you, you failed to take complete responsibility for it and lost it somewhere along life's way.

The parables of the lost things in the Bible tell us that God finds the lost things. He lets them wander like the sheep so they can know that He is pursuing them, get knocked around or buried under something like the coin, so they can know that He will leave no stone unturned in bringing them back because they are precious to Him, and lets us rebel like the stupid son who resented Him so that He could humble Himself and run to greet us when we come running back. We are never really LOST in God's eyes. He knows where we are every minute. We are the ones who don't know where the lost things went or that we are the lost things, but they are somewhere, and always under His watchful eye.

So in pursuit of the lost project #2, I found lost project #1. It was in a completely different container than I had taken it to the class in. It got put in with other projects of a like nature when I sorted things out somehow, or I had all the samples with me and didn't realize I had taken them all, and it got put on the bottom and not the top. I still don't remember how it got there, but it was in my keeping the entire time. So in reality it wasn't truly lost, but hidden. It was in no peril, but it disturbed my heart for years.

And the project that wasn't mine? I went to bed totally disturbed, having searched every conceivable place I could look, and I couldn't sleep. So I prayed. I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. God, you know where it is...please show me. Still no peace. I got up, walked down the stairs, and decided by God's thought to start to my left at the piano and look through everything in the house until I found it or couldn't keep my eyes open. I looked down and against the legs of the piano bench leaned the large red clip board that I had taken with me that fateful day. My heart stopped. I leaned over and the box, that simple black shoe box, was leaning on the backside of it, facing away from me. It had not spilled its contents when someone had knocked both off the bench that I had sat it on when I had brought it home. At 2:00 am God showed that He had indeed known the whole time where the lost thing was and how He wanted me to know that He cared about it and me more than I could ever know. I slept like a baby.

Class came and went, I can now finish the project and return the tool and pattern with the story of its journey to its rightful owner.

The treasure bag of God is not a shoe box, but the sack that the owner would put things in to take it away from oncoming marauders, to save it from being stolen. That is what He does for us...keeps us from being permanently stolen away by the enemy of our souls. When you grab and go, like from a fire or flood, you grab the things most precious to you. And we are what God grabs. The rest of the universe will burn and be swept away, but not us. We will be kept safe, all bundled together with the others of His life, from the coming Day. He will take care of us far better than we take care of the things we lose on a daily basis. He is responsible for us, no matter how lost we try to get! And that's a wonderful thing that we can count on.