I had one of those with Maggie a couple of weeks ago.
Oh, and I'm sure I miss them sometimes, but this has consistently been the easiest one for me to pick up on!
Apparently Maggie loves her Abby Cadabby stuffed animal/doll more than I ever knew.
Maggie (and Leah) has a community in her bed.
And she knows who belongs where. She likes to have her bed arranged just so before she goes to sleep. Sometimes she doesn't nap because she's so busy reorganizing things.
One morning she woke up and while she and Leah were getting ready, she started sobbing.
Now, to be fair, random, over-dramatic sobbing isn't unusual in our house. But, Aaron and I poked our heads in to the girls room and asked what was going on.
Maggie managed to choke out that she couldn't find Abby.
Aaron was brushing his teeth and I was making Leah's lunch, so we told her we would help her look when we finished what we were doing.
Maggie crawled into the dark unknown
to see if she could rescue Abby.
But, alas, Abby wasn't under the bed.
Many times, if a bed community member is missing, he/she/it is under the bed. Abby not being under the bed amped up the urgency of the search.
As I was walking to Maggie and Leah's room, I glanced under the kitchen table and saw that Abby was under one of the chairs.
"Maggie! Maggie!" I called. "I found Abby!"
She ran to the kitchen, scooped up Abby, and we celebrated. We laughed and hugged and jumped up and down.
We rejoiced.
And it hit me.
I pulled out my Bible and turned to Luke 15:1-10.
On a side note, I like to show the girl things in my Bible instead of me just telling them about it. They think it's very cool.
Maggie and I looked in the Bible and I read about the shepherd who left his flock to find the one missing sheep.
We talked about how even though she knew where the rest of her
We talked about the woman looking all over her house to find her lost coin, just like Maggie looked all over her room and even under her bed. We figured that the woman probably looked under her bed for her missing coin, too.
When the shepherd and the woman found what they were missing, they told their friends and they celebrated and rejoiced together. Just like Maggie and I were so happy together!
I told her that's how Jesus loves us...how He love her. He loves Maggie so much and wants to find her and rescue her. He looks for Maggie, because He loves her.
We talked about how we all do bad things called sins and how that gets between us and God. When we sin, our sin makes God sad...even if your mom and dad don't see it, God sees it. But, because God loves us so much, He sent Jesus to die in our place. All we need to do is turn from our sins, tell Jesus we're sorry for our sins, and thank Him for taking our place.
Maggie is certainly starting to understand. Little by little, her heart is starting to understand sin and grace and redemption and what that means for her.
I can't tell you how much I love getting a front row seat to watching God draw her to Himself.
After Maggie found Abby, she immediately set up a bed for her on the couch, and started singing her one of our nighttime songs.
Melt. My. Heart.
Please don't read this and think that I must be super mom/Biblical scholar to talk to my daughter about this. I assure you that I am neither of those.
Jesus told common stories to people for a reason.
Why?
Because some things are universal. All people in all places in all of time have lost things.
And they search and look and are relentless until they find what they are looking for.
Just like God is relentless in His pursuit of us.
That leaves me feeling beyond grateful.
Grateful that He seeks and saves those who are lost.
And grateful that He made it easy to explain and relate to our lives right now.
I'm walking in that gratefulness today...so grateful to be found.
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