The last week of June, I was running - literally - to the store to pick up some things that I needed to make breakfast. Wearing a reusable shopping bag like a backpack, I jogged the 5 blocks to SuperFresh, the local grocery chain.. 2 blocks away, I found 3 school ID cards - all of the same teacher - scattered on the sidewalk.. The school was closed with no one around, thus, dropping the cards in my bag, I continued on to my destination. As I unloaded my groceries back at place, I took the cards out and laid them on the entry table (if you knew how small my apt is - you'd laugh at this "entry table" that doubles as a chest of drawers for my roommate and triples as an end table for the couch. It's great at multi-tasking *laughs*). "I'll get an envelope and drop those back at the school on Monday" I thought.. then my friend came, and life happened, and I promptly forgot about them. Until 2 weeks ago.. (yeah, 3 weeks later, oops!) While tidying up our small lil space, I saw them again - and since I had an errand to run - I drove by the school on my way. The 2 adults standing in the fenced in playground looked more like they were in charge of day-care than school, but I stopped asking if they knew the teacher listed on the ID's. They did! "She's been looking everywhere for these" one of them said. "She'll be glad to have them back." *yay*
Rewind to last year - sorta same situation, but this time with keys.. For the first 5 weeks of Project, I lived in a condo - the kind where people come and go on a weekly basis. I found the key ring in the dirt under a bush.. We checked the 5 key, to see if we could figure out which condo they fit. We looked for a car that matched the make of the 2 different ignition keys - no dice. So - I put them in my car, in hopes to figure out a way to ID them.. But the summer got busy, and there they sat.. All the way home with me they eventually went.. The key ring included 3 loyalty cards: Baby's R Us, ShopRite (local NJ grocery) and American Eagle. I tried Baby's R Us - but they wouldn't give me any information on the card holder.. I figured A&E would be the same. The keys made it back to Wildwood with me this summer. Since ShopRite has more of a local/renter mentality, I figured they might be a bit more understanding. Today I went to customer service, and they were able to call the customer and let them know that their keys were turned in and where they could come retrieve them.. *double yay*
Lost things found.. Found things returned..
Of course these musings are always going to turn Spiritual - as how can I not connect this to something deeper ;)
As I think about "lost" and "returned" - I can't help but wonder how this correlates to people.. One of Cru's mission statements is "to turn lost students into Christ-centered laborers". "Lost" students.. Lost people.. People who have not "returned" to their Savior..
On Saturday, the students on Project put on a free cook-out for the locals. Many international students come to Wildwood to work for the summer, thus most of the attendees were not from America. Because I have a *wonderful team* of Interpreters this year, I ended up stepping out of my "interpreter role" and getting into a conversation with a guy from Serbia named "George" (pronounced "Geor-Jeh"). He was raised in an Orthodox tradition, but admitted that religion didn't mean much to him - since he had studied many different religions - and now considered himself an atheist. We had a great convo - one in which we bounced from spiritual topic to national specific topics and back - everything was fair game. If you know me, you know that I like discussing theological things, and so when he brought up the idea of "losing his faith" in the God of Bible - it caught me up in a ponderment..
This idea of "lost vs. misplaced" .. and how - from the perspective of the Card-holder and the key-owners, their item was "lost".. when really it was "found, waiting to be returned".. which brings me to the concept of "already but not yet".. in that it was "already found but not yet returned".. Spiritually speaking - it causes me to wonder - Can someone "misplace their trust" in God? annnd - if not - then the process of questioning God - like the season of life George is in - could it be classified as an "already but not yet" kind of thing? As the students on Project live in the tension of "stepping out in faith to share the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God" how much of a persons life is an "already but not yet" child of God? Is it like the "already but not yet" process of sanctification - being saved by Jesus' sacrifice that covers us once and for all, but daily working out that salvation to become more like Christ? Do these things even correlate? I'm glad it is the Lord that searches the hearts of men and not I - as I it is something my finite mind struggles to grasp..
However, these concepts are comforting to me. Especially "already but not yet".. Below is a song is called "Desert Song" by Hillsong (lot's of "songs" in that sentence).. It wrestles with some of the things I've been mulling over recently..
"When triumph is still on it's way.." meaning in the midst of the battle - when the victory has not yet been won.. when the winning seems lost.. or not yet found.. "All of my life, in every season.." when the plans seem to be working out in a different way than I anticipate.. when blue prints seem to be misplaced.. lost under a stack of papers.. "You are still God.. I have a reason to worship.."
and maybe it's a process - of being "lost.. and then returned.." or the conundrum of being "already but not yet" that I find comfort - and Hope - in.
Thus - "I will rejoice, I will declare - [no matter what stage of the battle I'm in] God is my victory and He is here.."
Soli Deo Gloria
:D
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