Accept the Good

"Imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God." Luke 15:8-10

I think I now know how that woman felt who was looking for her lost coin and made a startling discovery. The Amplified version says that she had 10 coins, each one equal to a day's wages.   That means she had plenty of money to last her for 9 days, but yet she was desperately seeking for the one coin which meant so much to her.  It doesn't say if this woman was single or widowed or married, but I imagine that either she depended on the money for her survival or she knew her husband would be really upset over her losing the grocery money.

Have you ever looked for something you thought was lost
and refused to give up on it saying "I know it's here somewhere!"  Often I have been there and thrown up a prayer saying "God you know right where it is, help me find it."  And then you find it.  And that feeling you experience afterward, "Aha!  There you are!"  or "Ah, Praise the Lord! I found it."  The verse above says that's just how God and the angels feel every time a lost soul turns to him.  It's party time!

I lost my keys to the office one day at work.  I searched and searched for them and was afraid that we were going to have to get all the office doors re-keyed.  I found them in my car down between the seats.  Another time, there was a camera that was lost.  It was missing for a couple of weeks but eventually it was discovered tucked away in a file drawer.  Each time these lost things weighed heavily on me because of the responsiblity attached to them.

After the hurricane people told me that for a long time to come I would find myself looking for something and remember, "Oh yes, that was lost in the flood".  Well, that's where I found myself again today, only I didn't realize that I had been searching so intently.  I didn't realize that I had been focusing so much on what was lost and how heavily it was weighing on my spirit.

One of my favorite movies is with Halle Berry called "Things We Lost in the Fire". It's the story of a widow who invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss. At the close of the film Jerry leaves flowers on Audrey's doorstep with a note that reads, "Accept the good." 

I think that sometimes we have a tendency to focus so much on the one coin (on the things that we have lost) that we forget to accept the good (the other nine coins) in our lives.  Today I remembered some things that were lost in the flood, some things that were precious to me that will never be recovered or replaced.  And then ... that realization led me to make a startling discovery of something I had been searching for for a very long time.  I realized that I had been desperately looking for something, but in grieving the losses of the past I have come to accept the fact that there are some things you can never replace.  You just have to focus on the good and enjoy what you have in the present. So, today I choose to accept the good, and to focus on the future, because there is so much to celebrate!