Lost and Found

Why do I have a picture of a shoe? Funny story. I tend to think somewhat of an amazing story. You know how it is, two kids, shopping, making sure you are coming home with all your purchases and your children as well? Yeah, almost impossible. So I wasn't too surprised when I got home from the grocery store to find that my son now only possessed one shoe. Not only that, but my son has gigantic feet and must wear wide width and have the top knotch unlaced in order to get them on. Even so, we have worked up a sweat trying to put shoes on that child. I remembered then, turning around and seeing it in the front of the cart. By the time I put the cart in the return, it had completely slipped my mind.

I was near tears when I remembered an hour later as I was putting groceries away. How were we going to replace those shoes? His first little shoes,the shoes he learned to walk in... the shoes that actually fit his feet? I pleaded with God to let it still be where I left it. Surely it would be. It was a Thursday morning, the store had not been that busy, and they never gather those carts, do they?

But when I buckled my small children back into their carseats and made the trek back to the store, I could have burst into tears if it wouldn't have upset my daughter. The carts were gone. I went to the men working on retrieving those carts and pleadingly asked if they had seen a little boy's shoe. They checked all the carts. No shoe. I searched the ground around the cart return, I looked all through the car. It was absolutely nowhere to be found.

My husband called the store several times in the next couple of days, and twice we went to customer service in hopes that it had been found.

"Sorry." the lady behind the counter shrugged. "I only have one Winnie the Pooh shoe here."
That was not our shoe. Our shoe had a basketball, a baseball and a soccer ball that lit up when he walked.

"Thank you." I said, discouraged. Somehow deep inside I had believed that God would answer our prayers, and allow us to find that shoe. I sighed, and began the search for a new pair of shoes.

My search proved fruitless. There just aren't shoes that size. I tried on about ten pairs, and none of them would fit over those fat little feet. My son had no shoes.

I didn't know what else to do. I had explored every option, I had found dead ends at every possible solution.

On a very bad day, suffering with a migraine and grouchy with my husband, I went into the playroom to clean up the mess created with what looked like a tornado that must have swept through our home. I saw the remaining shoe on the floor under a myriad of toys. I sniffed unhappily, remembering the dilemma. Then my eyes darted to the shelf. The same shoe. No, a different shoe - the other shoe! I had to look at both of them several times, pick them up in my hands, and generally recover from the shock before I accepted the fact that I now had two shoes again. Sitting in the playroom.

I asked my husband if he had found it. He had not. It was as if the shoe had materialized into our playroom. How on earth that shoe reappeared will always be a great mystery to our family. But one thing is definitely true, it's back.

I don't know why God cares so much about a shoe, but it appears that He does. Maybe it's not so much the shoe, but the people that needed the shoe. Maybe God knows what we need and we have no need to ever worry. Maybe it will always be okay, because if He cares about a missing shoe, imagine how much he cares about a broken heart, a loss, a disappointment. Imagine how much He really does care.

So the next time you are searching for a missing shoe, remember my story. That God really does care about the littlest details. And He always will.