Many of you are probably familiar with the biblical parable of the woman and the lost coin. It can be found in Luke 15:8-10. The parable reads as follows:
"Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Obviously the parable has deep theological signficance, which I would usually take the time to unpack. But in this case, this is not why I am writing this post.
Last week was a flat out, ODD, week. Perhaps it had something to do with the weather- Tuesday there were tornadoes and storms in the Twin Cities with a high of 90 degrees and 90% humidity. The next day was a beautiful 80 and mostly sunny. This was followed by showers and 70, the next day rain and gray and 55, and Saturday, down right chilly at 44.
Aside from the weather, it was an odd week too. The Faculty and Staff of Luther Seminary took on the Students in an annual softball game, in which the students lost for the second time in five years I guess. It was a sad moment. It would have been the most sad, until I realized at about 9pm that night that I was not wearing my wedding ring. [cue- dramatic music sound]
Like most people I presume, I flew into a panic trying to find it. Could I have left it somewhere in the apartment? Might it have fallen off when showering after the softball game? Perhaps it fell in a dresser drawer? No. The answer to all these places and more were "No." I knew what this meant. The sun had gone down about a half hour prior, and my ring was almost certainly outside some place.
I had spent the game playing third base, and I could only reckon that the ring must have come off at some point when I took my mitt off between innings. I went out to the field with a flashlight, knowing full well I was likely embarking on a "needle in a haystack" type of quest. I started by searching the dirt area of the infield, primarily around third. Deep down, I didn't think there would be any likelihood of finding it on the dirt. I knew it was probably on the grass in the area around where I took my glove off and had put my stuff during the game. I searched there too, but its pretty hard to search through glass with a lone flashlight at night. Just lots of dark green and worms all over the place, let me tell you. I temporarily abandoned my search, only to be joined by friends who came out without my asking to help search. Allison, Amanda, Jeremy, and Kaitlyn were outside searching with other flash lights, and together we searched for over a half hour. No luck. We decided to go back, and work on final projects that were due the next day, with the intention of getting up early in the morning to search again before class.
Understandably, I did not get much sleep that night. Later I would come to find out that Allison dreamed that she found the ring. Anyway, I was up by 6am, and out searching by 7am. The forecast called for rain by 8am, and I was determined to find that ring with light outside. If the rain came before I found it, I knew the difficulty in finding it would have only grown. I was out on my own for a half hour, I went over the entire field, but gravitated back to the grass. I figured it had to be in a certain 10 foot or so area. Allison and Amanda came out and joined, and just about five minutes before we were going to have to head off to class, my prayers were answered. I was circling a spot on the grass I had walked on at least four times in the past half hour, and found something shining up at me under a blade of grass. There it was, my wedding ring.
You can only imagine the joy I felt after this. The whole rest of the day could have been awful, but it would still be an amazing day! I couldn't help but break into such a big smile, as did Allison and Amanda. Our search was not in vain. The ring that had been lost, was now found.
The moral of the story- obviously, a wedding ring does not make a wedding. But the next time I am going to play softball, I am going to be very careful wearing my wedding ring.
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