Lost Sheep

The sun was beautiful tonight. All the colors as it was setting on the horizon.  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.  My shoulder aches and I know I need some kind of self care in order to work it out and make it feel better.  The ache has been there since a young man started to leave.  We housed a young man for a few days and now it is time for him to go home.  

Some of the ache is tied into missing my sons in Maine and some tied to wondering what care and world he is headed to and praying for things to be better for him.  

I remember those first days of looking for people and feeling like I was going after the one sheep who was lost.  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, not just the lost, the lost parts of ourselves.  

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.  Also, the one whose life has changed due to years of smoking so that retirement has been pushed a whole year early and the future is on unsteady ground.  We pray and ask God to help lead us forward into living a new life.  Or looking for someone lost and starting to be frustrated because there is no more you can do and you pray that it is enough.  Praying they will be found.

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.  For a moment we are glad that God does not leave us alone.  There is a shepherd who cares to reach out and hold our hands connecting us to the sacred Oneness of community.