Then there are the ornaments given to me by my parents: Mostly clay pieces made by a local company and shaped into something memorable from the previous year. There's me as a curly-haired baby in pink jammies. A clay-me in my Girl Scout uniform (Junior status). Me in a raft, to commemorate the year we all learned to canoe. The tradition has continued: I now have me and TJ in wedding clothes; TJ and me with my baby bump, "Clark" written across it. And a green clay dinosaur for Clark.
Each of us three kids had a box of ornaments going up. We'd share in the task of hanging the "family" ornaments, but everyone got the honor of hanging their own box on the tree. We knew which ones were ours, we knew the stories behind each. All the miscellaneous pieces crafted in Sunday school classes from plastic communion cups; the ones made in school; the ones made with scouts. Each had a story, a memory. A moment, forever lost until each December when the lid of our Ornament Box was lifted.
Somewhere between high school graduation and getting married in 2009, I lost my ornament box.
Mom hadn't put up a tree since I left home, and the family ornaments had been divided up. Along with my tub of family ornaments, I still had my shoebox of "my" ornaments, unwilling to mingle them. But between moving 6 times in three months in Coeur d'Alene, then to Moscow, then to Rapid City (four houses there) and then Yakima (two houses), the shoebox disappeared.
I figured it had gotten misplaced on top of a closet at some random apartment complex, or left in the car of some friendly helper during a move. I searched my dad's house in Sandpoint and his house in Montana, just in case. I searched my mom's closet. I begged her to look. And each Christmas I decorated a tree without my ornaments, I cried.
They were gone.
My mom came to visit this week, and she told me she was bringing her Christmas decorations so I could go through them and pick out what I wanted to keep. She's done hanging the family heirloom decor. Thinking about it, I felt renewed sadness for the loss of my Box.
And I remembered what my mom had always taught me: That God knows where everything is. And I prayed.
Dear God, find my ornaments.
It was so trivial. Such a shot-in-the-dark prayer. But maybe, maybe, I thought. Maybe some landlord would find the box in lost-and-found and remember me. Maybe some friend would call out of the blue. Maybe my dad would have them, afterall.
Maybe. Just maybe.
Dear Lord, I hoped, you know where they are. Can I have them again?
Last night, my mom and I pulled out Christmas memories, one-by-one, from her plastic tub. We opened each box and told the story of the candle stick, or centerpiece, or snow globe, to TJ. Who gave it to us. My favorite memory of it. What happened to the snowman's pipe. I set aside the ones I was the most found of to bring out for my own son this year.
About halfway down the box, I had a glimmer of hope. I lifted a small box out. Then another. And one more. And there was the edge ... a gray, square box. No. I thought. No way.
My shoebox. My ornaments.
Savannah's Ornaments was scrawled across the bottom in my 8-year-old handwriting. I lifted the lid, and they were there:
Two teddy bears on a bench. Clay Savannah in Junior Uniform. Clay Savannah in Raft. Bear at piano. A white reindeer. My Communion Cup Birdfeeder. A styrofoam egg covered with red circles to be a Santa Claus.
My ornaments. My memories. My childhood.
I sat on the couch and cried, taking each out, unwrapping, remembering. "You'll never get the box closed if you take them all out," my mother warned.
And I didn't care. I don't want that box closed ever again. I want it out. I want them all lined up on a shelf and displayed, a constant reminder that God cares.
God cares. He cares about your lost things -- your lost keys, your lost socks, your lost memories. My lost ornamnets.
God cares because he is the God of the Lost. He is the God who leaves the 99 and seeks the 1 sheep that wandered away. He is the God who welcomes back the lost son.
The thing I forget about that, is I think God has to come find me when I am lost. But like my ornaments, that's not true. God always knows where you are. He will never lose sight of you, even if you lose sight of Him.
And when you come home, He lovingly picks you up, holds you. Looks at you. And remembers you: This is my child. I made her on July 10, 1985. I remember the year she made Junior in Girl Scouts. I remember when she learned to canoe. I was with her when she got married. I was with her when she gave birth to her son. I am with her today. I remember when she thought she was lost.
I remember when she came home.
And He cries a little at his found You.
"What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? 5And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy 6and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance." Luke 15:4-7
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