The Little Lost Girl

My husband packed snacks in kids’ backpacks, fed impatient fur babies, and did other morning chores while I clung desperately to eight more minutes of snooze time. Before the alarm sounded again to urge me out of bed, he came into the bedroom to get his phone.

“I’ve got to go help a little lost girl in our yard,” he said.

“Huh?” I thought, but I was too sleepy and confused to say it out loud. "There's a lost kid in our yard??"

The storm door clanged, and I got up to see just what was going on. Peeking through the blinds on the kitchen window, I saw Alex standing at the bottom of our driveway with a child I didn’t recognize, both of them with bare feet.

As curious as I was, I had to wake our children and pick out their clothes for the day. Whatever the situation, it appeared Alex was handling it. I peeked out the window again a couple minutes later to see Alex and the child sitting on the ground together, looking out toward the street. The next time I checked, as our kids got ready for school and preschool, an SUV was parked at the end of our driveway and Alex stood talking to the driver.

When he came back in, my curiosity was satisfied as I listened to the story.

He had taken some trash outside, and on the way back in, couldn’t get the storm door to latch. As he tried, he heard a child call, “I’m lost! I’m lost!”

The child turned out not to be a girl, but an eleven-year-old boy with braids, who lives two streets over. He had opened the door to check for his school bus, when his two dogs pushed past him and ran outside. He chased after them but never caught up. When he stopped running, he didn’t know where he was.

I was happy that the child wound up in our yard instead of someone else’s. I was glad the door hadn’t latched, so Alex was there when the child was searching for someone to help him. It was no surprise to us that the door closed with no problem the next time Alex tried it. Sometimes there are just divine appointments to be kept.

I am grateful for a kind-hearted husband who will wait outside in his sleep clothes on a chilly morning, for a stranger to come pick up her lost son. And I am grateful for a beautiful reminder—one day, when I was lost, Jesus was there with the door open, ready to help me find my way to the Father.