lindsey.

3 years ago, in California, I was shopping with a Vietnamese girl that I had been mentoring.  I bought these fantastic earrings - big silver leaves, held together to make a diamond shape.  I loved them.  Despite the fact that they were huge and quite bold, I wore them almost every day.  They would break, and I would attempt to fix them.  Before I left for Vietnam, they finally met their demise.  When I arrived in Hanoi, I was determined to find a suitable replacement, but couldn’t find anything.   A few months later, when I was in Beijing, I found the exact pair on sale at a little boutique.  Of course, they were cheap and broke numerous times.  They lasted me until I got back to the states last summer, and they, too, met their demise. I hunted to see if I could find them again, going to every store I knew.  A few weeks before I left, I finally found them!!    I bought them for a third time, happy as a clam to have my favorite earrings again.  

Yesterday I wore them.  I was having a particularly sad day - feeling really lonely and homesick.  I walked over to my city teammate’s house, and the wind was blowing really hard.  When I arrived to her apartment, I discovered that one of my earrings had fallen off.  I was pretty bummed, but didn’t let it get me too down.  In the evening, I was walking back from her house with my teammate.  I was sharing that I was just feeling really lonely, waiting for the Father to show me why He had me in this wilderness season.  As soon as I said that, I looked down, and there, ON THE STREET, was my lost earring!  It was still intact, but clearly it had been run over by a motorbike or five.  I bent it back into shape, and when I got home re-attached it to the earring hook.  

As I started to relfect on that small event, I remembered a message I listened to from Matt Chandler last week.  When we pour out our hearts to Him, not only does He hear, He also responds.  He used a lost earring to remind me that He is not unaware of my lonliness, nor my desert season, and He will always provide what I need, no matter how small.  I am glad to have my favorite earrings back, of course, but I am thankful to have lost them, even momentarily, so that I could be reminded of the character of my Father.