Lost and Found in the Lone Star State

Its nice to hear back from everyone and I am glad ya'll enjoyed your time away Nick and Brianne. Right now I'm listening to Sufjan Stevens and wondering how to idle my day, kinda content like. The song I'm listening to right now ,"To be alone with you" , talks about Jesus' many sacrifices to literally be alone in a relationship with us -

"you gave your body to the lonely,
they took your clothes.
you gave up a wife and a family,
you gave your ghost

To be alone with me, to be alone with me,
to be alone with me, you went up on a tree"

Absolutely gorgeous stuff and I highly recommend this album. But the reason I quoted this is because I think we should dwell on the sacrifices Christ made to help us make our own sacrifices. Sacrifices for the sake of loved ones – there is no worthier thing, but it kinda hurts on our end when the love we show is not reciprocated. In the context of a family or spouse, I reckon that can both hurt worse tand feel betther han anything. I just wanted to share something about how God has been faithful and loving to us.
This past Saturday was my dad’s ordination service, whereupon he became an official priest in the Anglican Church. It was a very moving service for him as he had the bishop’s hands laid on him during it and then when he was ordained the bishop was the first to be blessed by him. Very nice affair, plenty of food afterwards too, though someone tore up all the chicken tenders before I could get to them. The Sunday after however, we get ready to go to church for my dad to do his first service as a priest and lo and behold, our SUV was not in the driveway. Turns out that it had been stolen. We were in a state of shock naturally, not really expecting any crime in the sleepy suburb that is Arlington TX. However, after the proper phone calls were made to the police and bank (my dad’s pocketbook and my sister and brother’s checkbooks were in there) we prayed and made off to go to church.
I had faith that the car would be recovered, but I had no idea when. It seemed kinda cruel that the same God who provided this car as such a blessing for us in the past few years would just take it away from us. Thankfully, however, my dad got a call a few minutes before the service was about to start, that the police had found the car. It turns out the thieves had abandoned it in the middle of the road @ three in the morning the previous night. Amongst the items they made off were all the documents in the glove compartment, the keys to the house, car and the church, my dad’s pocketbook, and the grand prize, our dirty old seat and steering wheel covers.
We really had to thank God, things could have been so much worse. Maybe they were not because they also stole the entire box of invitations to my father’s ordination. They had taken enough documents to realize that they were stealing the car of an ordained priest, and perhaps that is why they dropped it off a block away in the most conspicuous place they could leave it. Hopefully they were convicted by their deed and I have a feeling that we perhaps have not heard the last of this story. However I say all this because that ordeal was an indicator of God’s faithfulness to those that He had given up everything for. If the car had never been recovered, we would only have to rely on Him more, but the fact that it had been, and had been so quickly, aslo teaches us about His love and how He turns what was meant for evil into good.
One verifiable benefit of that situation is that it brought us together closer as both a family and a church that day. People who had differences with my father put those aside to help with all that needed to be done to recover the vehicle, which really put my dad in a better mood, helped him to preach a great sermon, and in return helped the church to be more accepting of him as the new viccar. I am just in general reminded about Jesus' parables about the things lost and found, namely about the woman who lost one coin and when she had found it she called her friends to rejoice with her, or the rejoicing that the father made when His prodigal son returned, or the shepherd's joy when he found the one lost sheep that He left the others to go retrieve.
In thinking about what gets pushed aside and how our priorities are changed when we want to recover something, and the happiness we have afterwards when we have it, then of course Jesus could really count it all joy when we consider all that he gave up. I think back to the lyrics I posted above, the attachment to what is lost and what is voluntarily given up, the joy at its recovery, and importantly, celebrating that with others.
So don't be dismayed when you have to sacfrifice something, you are working towards gaining a greater prize in the affections of those that you loved, just like Christ. The happieness he has over us should be emulated towards those we love.