Parable of the Lost Earring

I lost one of my gold and opal earrings. It’s very small, about the size of a ½-inch metal nut. After attending years of Christian schools and universities with a no-jewelry policy, and working with schools, universities, and a ministry with the same dress code, I found myself laid off, without a job in this Great Depression of the 21^st century. Honestly, one of my first thoughts as the shock of being jobless set in was, “Woo-hoo, now I can get my ears pierced and no one will censure me as a Jezebel.” So I did get my ears pierced for the first time at age 50, and I can finally wear the little earring sets that were given to me over the years, that have languished in my jewelry box.

I discovered the loss at about 10 pm yesterday, after I'd come back from a short walk to the mailbox, and from rolling the wheelie bin to the street for trash collection. Mundane tasks, to be wearing pretty jewelry, I suppose.

I took out the flashlight and retraced my steps in the dark, walking back to the mailboxes with a side-to-side scan of the flashlight, and looking in the gravel around the trash cans where I'd moved them. I searched the front courtyard, where I’d watered my plants, but all I found were weeds to spray in the daylight. Back inside, I searched the floors and rugs like a CSI technician, looking for a sparkle of gold. I shook out my bedding, and looked in the clothes I'd worn earlier to see if the earring had got stuck in the fabric.

THEN I prayed that if God cared about my missing earring, would he please let me find it. “It's just vain adornment, according to what I was taught, and not important when one considers earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns, or killer tornadoes. Not important, when one considers the economy that’s flushed irrevocably down the sewer. Closer to home, how does this loss compare to the ongoing lack of a job, the family member with a terminal disease, the relationships that are broken, the hope that’s been lost. It's not like Jesus' parable* of the woman who lost a tenth of her savings and searched and cleaned the house to find it—it’s just a little piece of jewelry. But you know, if you care that I care, please let me find my earring.”

I put away the flashlight and locked up the house for the night. An hour later, I went to bed and stepped barefoot on my little earring. (It didn't hurt, as the pin was closed.) It had been on the far side of the bed where the bedtime dog treats are. My lesson is that God cares that I care—maybe earrings don't matter, but my feelings do matter to God.  

My friends, thank you for your prayers! I don't think that God answers certain requests because all the “pray-ers” have collectively sent enough energy that they’ve reached some cosmic quota; or that righteous people are more favored than others in their requests. I don't know why he is silent on some things, and shows his hand on others. But it sure does good to the human heart to know that other human beings care enough to take issues to God in intercession for their friends and family. It benefits both the pray-er and the pray-ee. Please continue to pray for the truly important issues, and remember me sometimes when you do.

It does me good to know that the Creator of the universe sent me some love, and some hope that he’s working on my other issues; and at the same time, blew a raspberry at the man-made, non-scriptural “adornment” code. Haha!

Rejoice with me and the angels of God; I have found my lost bauble!

* The Parable of the Lost Coin—Luke 15:8-10

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’  In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

It’s a dry rain

“When it rains, I like to tell children that God is crying. Probably because of something they did.” ~from Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
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I was born in a desert city, an arid place with high summer temperatures which people excuse with “It’s a dry heat.” There are few places on earth like this, where rain is welcomed with dancing in the streets, where people come out of their offices and homes to experience for themselves the big splatters of rain, the blasts of ever-cooler wind that take the temperature from 110° to 80°, the bolts of lightning striking the power substations. 

We desert people love our storms. Like gamblers coaching dice, we look to the eastern sky and beg the thunderheads building over the mountains, “Come on, baby, you can make it!”

It’s called the monsoon season, although it bears no resemblance to the monsoons of the Near East. When I was a child and the city was much smaller, the storms hit several times a week through July and August. Now that Phoenix is 100 miles from northwest to southeast, the column of heat rising from concrete and asphalt bounces all but the strongest storms back into the desert and its mountains.

The funny thing is, desert storms aren’t broad systems, but individual towering clouds only a few miles across. Sometimes the rain will fall 30 feet away on the neighbor’s property, but your own property gets nothing. Wet sidewalks there, dry here. The Doppler radar on your computer shows a big red blob headed for your neighborhood—but the storm splits and goes around, leaving you with all the dust, some of the cool, and a few of the sprinkles. But not the downpour that would wash away the months of powdered sand, stream off the roof, or sink into the thirsty ground. Someone wrote on Facebook, “It’s a dry rain.”

Here in this dry place, separated from loved ones, rejected by an employer, applying for jobs in the black hole of the economic recession, seeing no spark of a love life, unable to afford the reunion this year, lacking resources for health care, not qualifying for aid after paying taxes for 35 years, having moved away from a house that I made home, leaving friends in another state, and feeling unappreciated—I need rain. 

It’s been my practice to follow the advice of a friend, to “stay sweet and positive” in my relationships and communications. Certainly in this discouraging world, it’s important to present myself as strong and happy, that I have my act together and am successful in my work, that I'm invulnerable and have faith in God’s desire and ability to bless, that because I’m a child of God he supplies all my need. It's not hypocritical to want to portray God as my "everything"--it's called evangelism, sharing the good news that our loving God is the answer. But I confess that I'm the same as every other hurt child.

The danger is that my own friends and family don’t understand the need because they see the image I successfully projected. They have their own need to worry about, so if they think I’m doing all right, well, that’s all good. So day after day, month after month, I am a heat island, repelling the storms I need in the fiction that I-am-woman-hear-me-roar. No hugs, no touches, no heart-to-heart communication. No rain.

The powerful and beautiful storm clouds tower above, and there are precursors to a soaking rain. Then the storm splits and goes around, and I’m left as hot and dry as ever, but this time without hope. It could be days or weeks before the next storm appears, and it may roll over again, leaving its refreshing blessings on someone else.

Your Father in heaven… gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. Matthew 5:45 NLT

The point of the verse is to love the unlovable as well as the lovable, just as God distributes his grace to all, righteous and unrighteous. But at this beaten-down, vulnerable time (that seems to drag on endlessly), I just need to know deep inside that I’m loved by God and loved by people, that all this painful change is not the consequence of something I did or a bad choice I made. It's the way of the world that is not our home. However, it's the only home any of us has known thus far.

I need real, wet, soaking, refreshing rain. I need to feel that God is not punishing me; that he's not withholding blessing to teach me a lesson; that he's not closing all the doors—and windows, too. I need to know that he's not crying about something I did. Hearing people say they’ll pray for me is nice, but it’s not enough. I don’t know what will fill my empty reservoir.

Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the wasteland. The parched ground will become a pool, and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land. Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish where desert jackals once lived. Isaiah 35:6-7 NLT

That would be a good start to filling the dry desert lake. There would be enough water to release into the dry riverbed filled with rocks, prickly cacti, and mesquite trees, and let it nourish the lands beyond.

Surely I’m not the only person on earth going through the parched, empty valley, desperate for the pillar of cloud. Look around. Those who seem to have it all together—don’t. Millions have lost their jobs and had to make hard choices when they thought that their years of sacrificial work and good sense would allow them to thrive, not just survive. They've seen their immediate family turn away. They have deep wounds that they hide in an attempt to keep it together for an example to others, and to "witness" about godly life. God doesn't need our public relations efforts. He will be glorified anyway.

What can you do? Realize that everyone is a lost, lonely child. Start with a hug. When they pull away in embarrassment or confusion, give an extra squeeze as if to say "I just can't do it in only one hug." Don't believe them when they say everything's all right and change the subject. Your open heart might be rain to them. They might step outside, inhale the sweet breeze, soak up the raindrops, and begin to dance.