The Parable of the Lost Resource CD

So summer is winding down.

Did you hear that?  It was the collective groans from the teachers around the globe.

Including home school teachers.

But this also ushers in my favorite time of year:  lesson planning.

Lesson planning is my guilty pleasure.  I love looking for great resources and laying out what we'll cover and books we'll read and math problems we'll solve.  I love putting it down on paper.  I love working the jigsaw puzzle that will be our schedule for the year.  Trying to determine how to fit in class work, chores, sports, music, church, family, friends into a 24 hour day.  And then after weeks of planning and rearranging and planning again, I print out the final copy...my magnum opus of plans.... and feeling very accomplished exhale a 'it is finished'.

But not this year.  This year things went funky.

It started off well.  Pondering and praying over the year ahead.  Reading and researching the best resources.  Browsing and bargain shopping to find the best deals.  And a few weeks ago I got all my stuff in the mail.  It was time.  Time to lay it all out before me.  Like a tiny baby island surrounded by the massive sea, I would surround myself with these books and workbooks and abacuses (abaci???  Whatever).  Time to flip through the pages and play with the manipulatives and make copies. And for this school nerd, it leaves me feeling a little buzzed.

But not this year.  Because this year as I was bobbing out there in my sea of curriculum something was missing.   My resource CD.  My Classical Conversations resource CD, people.  A new, still shrink wrapped set of 3 CD's that contains all my print outs for the year!!!  I had bought it a few weeks prior.  It had been laying by my computer....or was it on the table in the hallway....or in the basement?   No matter, it had been here.  And now it wasn't.  Not cool.

So I looked around.  On my book shelves, under couch cushions, in laundry baskets, in the pantry.  No luck.  But I did find some chocolate chips. Score.  With no avail, I attempted to go in with reinforcements.  My recruitment strategy:  sighing a lot and continually walking in front of the TV so The Yahoos might decide to help me look.  No luck.  So I told them I would pay a dollar to the person who found it.  All I got were eye rolls.  I forget they aren't 3 anymore.  I tried to get The Honey to care but that wasn't really getting anywhere with him until I told him it cost $30.  He moves pretty fast when dollar signs are involved.  But even with him....nothing.

So I thought I'd please Jesus and pray about it.

And boy did I.  With eyes closed and head bowed and hands grasped tight I began pleading that he would rescue my CD from the terrible abyss it had apparently fallen into.  With each request that He bring it home quickly and with repeated acknowledgment that He was the only one who knew where it was, my passion within grew.  I was being such a good little Christian.  Jesus must be so happy.

But not really.  Because no sooner had I uttered those words did I feel Him....no lie, almost literally feel Him... stoop down in front of me and gently touch those grasped hands and say "We'll get to that CD in a minute.   But can I ask you, why don't you pray for lost souls the way you are begging for this lost CD?"

And there it was.

When the Lord meets you you can't help but see Him for who He is and you for who you are.  I no longer was a tiny island surrounded by my trinkets of distractions, but a lone sinner drifting in a sea of my sin.  He was right.  I couldn't remember the last time I had pleaded that sincerely and earnestly for those that don't know Him.  Listen to me....even my own children.  What is wrong with  me?

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

His voice, that simple question, it haunted me all day.  Never condemning, only convicting.  Grace that brought me to the throne of God.  And confession is so good for this soul.  In love, God awakened me to my Pharisee heart.  Like a shepherd uses the crook of his staff to turn his sheep back towards him, My Good Shepherd used a lost CD to meet me face to face.

I still haven't found that CD.  And I honestly hope I never do.  Because it is my Ebenezer.   My reminder to stop getting distracted by the things in this world and to start getting serious about the people in it.

Suppose a woman has ten silver coins, but she loses one of them. She will take a light and clean the house. She will look carefully for the coin until she finds it.  And when she finds it, she will call her friends and neighbors and say to them, ‘Be happy with me because I have found the coin that I lost!’  In the same way, it’s a happy time for the angels of God when one sinner decides to change.”

Luke 15:8-10