The lost sheep

the sun was beautiful as it was setting on the horizon tonight...i am stirred within watching as the light fades and ebbs...it is one of those in between times which always touch the sacred for me...i think of all i have been through these last couple of weeks...i remember those first days of looking for a young person who was lost and feeling like i was going after the one sheep who was lost instead of tending to the 99...it touches something inside me that is tender and the tears are right behind that image...lost and we find one at a time one by one...like this past week when the person in the bed was discouraged with their recovery process and asked me if they could die and we prayed for God to be with them on the journey, along the way...and the other person whose life has changed due to health issues so that they have to retire a whole year early and are left wondering what they will do, and we pray and ask God to help lead them forward into living a new life, which is a life unknown...it is so easy to get lost in our lives to feel separated from the sacred, to think we are alone, and yet we reach out of our hurt into prayer...hoping to hear from the empty sky...to know that God is with us along the road...to have some sign we are headed in the right direction, and yes sometimes to make everything fall magically together and make sense...God responds with love, with hands to hold ours, with people who are in the business of finding...and we for a moment are glad that God does not leave us alone...that there is a shepherd who cares to reach out and hold our hands connecting us to the sacred Oneness of community.