These last few days have brought home afresh to me the message in Luke 15 when Jesus is talking about the parables of the Lost sheep and the prodigal Son and the cost of Discipleship and forgiveness. I love the way the shepherd kept searching for the one sheep that was lost, leaving the rest and searched until he had found it and then returned back to the rest rejoicing . Also the way that the father welcomed back the prodigal son even though he had made bad choices and treated him really badly, he forgave him and celebrated that His Son had come back home..
My understanding has been awakened this week afresh as one of my older girls aged 16 decided to run away and we had no idea why or to where she had run...she just did not come home from school. The staff tried looking for her but by nightfall they had no idea where she was. I rallied people to pray along with us that God would a. protect her and b. would expose to us where she was hiding. The next day i joined the search for this precious daughter who has been with us for two years and has made so much progress...
Mama Sati and I visited the school, talked to friends, visited friends homes gradually formulating a picture of what had been happening recently and gaining and checking out leads...we were going from here to there meeting so many people , and just when it seemed we were getting no where fast we got a call from her uncle to say she was at his home....and could we go and get her !!! yeah... we were rejoicing that she was ok but had so many unanswered questions that needed answers
God had answered our prayers and exposed where she was...we hurried there and talked with her relations and discovered no real answers ...
Only God really knows the why ? and how ? and where ? we carried our daughter back into the fold to her sisters all who had been so worried about her .
It was then that we had to make some choices, just like the father did in the prodigal son parable we had to accept that she made some bad choices, had probably done some wrong things and we needed to forgive her and love her despite everything.
It is not always easy to do but God calls us to disciple others, to encourage the weaker brothers and sisters in the faith, to forgive when they do wrong and keep loving unconditionally like he does to us.
I don't know what the future holds for her but i do know that i have to ask God to help me trust her again and to keep loving her and to pray she will learn from her mistakes and grow closer to God as a result. I am grateful that our shepherd never gives up on us even when we go astray he will always search for us until we are found and he can bring us home.
