Lost and Found

Halfway home from Paris, Isaac gasped, “I forgot my phone!”

This was annoying. First of all, Isaac had summarily dismissed my repeated suggestions to use a backpack or bag to contain all the items he was juggling. Second, we were caravanning the 3+ hour drive home to Brussels with Hannah and her family, still jetlagged from their Alaska to Europe flight. Third, the kids frequently sit on their stuff and then panic when they can’t find it.

But when we got home, it did indeed seem to be lost. The kids use our old iphones to listen to music, do French apps, watch Frozen 2 in the car, and play minecraft and Roblox during screen time. Losing it was a big inconvenience but not a tragedy.

Isaac and I walked through the events of losing it: he was listening to music in the airbnb before the cousins arrived. One night he got up to go to the bathroom and couldn’t find his blankie. He used the phone flashlight to find the blankie down in the crevices of the fold-out couch.

Here I’d like to make a note about how evil fold-out couches are. Not only are they torturously uncomfortable, but they also eat stuffies and lovies like a starving animal. Baby Huskie was lost in a fold-out couch for over a year before Grandma found him, knitted him a sleeping bag, and mailed him to Belgium. But back to the phone.

Isaac had returned the phone to his suitcase so he wouldn’t forget it when we left in the morning. But it’s possible the clunking sound when he pulled his suitcase off the luggage rack was the phone falling, not the rack knocking into the wall, like he thought at the time. Sad!

We emailed the airbnb manager repeatedly over the next few weeks and continued searching around our own house just in case we still had it. She asked around but her cleaner and subsequent guests hadn’t seen it. Hannah and Justin and the kids flew home. Grandma and Pa arrived. We went Christmas market hopping and still, no phone. Isaac tried to steal Eloise’s phone to listen to music and play Roblox. We explained that one consequence of losing his phone was… you know… not having a phone, and that he wasn’t allowed to steal Eloise’s whenever he felt like it.

One night before bed, our story in How Great is Our God: 100 Indescribable Devotions about God and Science, ended with an exhortation to pray for impossible things. Isaac prayed that God would help someone find his phone.

Being lost is a repeating theme in my life. One of the worst parts of moving is getting lost on the way home from the grocery store or school or something. It’s just a reminder, “Hey! You stranger! You have no idea where you are!! YOU are LOST AND ALONE!”

And having our home in a state of massive disorder is another crappy part of moving in, when everything is a mess and you can’t find anything because everything is everywhere. Reminder: “You’re in a new place! Every single thing requires conscious thought! Nothing is easy or on autopilot! If you want to find a spoon you must check all three drawers and probably pinch a finger!”

We generally like moving, but the aspects of being lost or not being able to find things make Luke 15 one of my favorite Bible passages. It’s where Jesus is talking to everyone—Pharisees, teachers of the law, tax collectors, sinners—and tells them the parable of the lost sheep. Out of 100 sheep, one is missing? It’s not a throw-away—the shepherd goes after it! He rescues it and carries it gently home! He calls together his friends and rejoices over the found sheep! Then Jesus goes straight into the parable of the lost coin. A woman has 10 coins and loses one. What does she do? Clean the house top to bottom until she finds it! Then she tells all her friends to rejoice over the lost coin. Jesus does not stop here but goes straight into everyone’s favorite parable: the prodigal son. The son rudely tells off his father and goes off to waste his life (and his father’s money). The money runs out and he has to get a gross job. In hunger he says to himself, what the heck, my dad’s servants live better than this. He goes home and his father spots him a long way off and comes to him (honoring his son who dishonored him). The son tells his father he is no longer worthy to be called his son, but the father restores him to full standing in the family and throws a feast. Luke 15 ends, “he was lost and is found.”

Isaac and I talked about how God loves to show his love for us by helping us find lost things, because that joy is a tiny fraction of the joy he feels when we turn away from pride and selfishness and turn to him.

But still the phone was gone. When Chris and I were in Vienna after Christmas, I got a text. The airbnb lady said someone found it! I asked if she could mail it and she said she’d let me know how much shipping would be. Then we heard nothing for a couple weeks. I texted her again mid-January asking if she needed anything else from us. Isaac continued to pray he’d get his phone back (we declined to tell him it had been found because finding it is only half of getting it back). I texted the lady again. “Who is this?” she texted back finally. That is not a good sign. She seemed to have no memory of who I was, so I sent her all the info again, and we sent her money for shipping. Two days later, we got an envelope in the mail.

I saw the return address was Paris and asked Isaac to open it. He pulled his phone out of the plastic and looked totally blank. “Wait… whaaaaaat? How did this get here?!” He seemed totally stunned and confused. It was great. We talked again about how God LOVES lost things and lost people. Us. We don’t always find what we lose OF COURSE, but nothing is better than seeing the kids see their prayers answered in a way that is meaningful and specific to them.

To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by Isaac’s initial reaction, but that changed the next day. Isaac and I were walking back to the car from church and he looked introspective. “I can’t believe I got my phone back,” he said, leaning his head on my shoulder for a moment.

If we ever actually get this phone back, I told Chris in Vienna, I’m going to do a blog post about it. Done!