Found

When angels leave you, you're never the same. 

Perhaps you become a little bit ruined for the ordinary. The shepherds were left standing on the ground they once considered as nothing but a grazing spot for their sheep, and now it was oh so holy. Their words are their first proclamation of faith, 

“Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened!” 

The angels and heavens armies did not leave skeptics on that holy ground but rock-solid believers. They hurried to small Bethlehem and looked in places where animals were fed. The sign was not lost on them, a baby in a feeding trough. It was just as odd a sign to the first Believers as it would be to us today. 

And then they found Him. I imagine that moment, the excitement, the awe. Spilling over, they speak to Mary and Joseph of the night they just experienced, and the words sustain hope in the new parents. They are not alone now in this bizarre ordeal. God has introduced the story to shepherds. The group of them huddle around the baby. There isn't a dry eye. Everyone knows they made history. God chose them all, and no one knows why. 

We have searched many times over for children lost on the streets. Children who were drawn back. Drawn out of the safety we offered them and drawn back to the life they have known on the streets. One small boy struggled so much staying off the streets. "I don't know why...but it's easier there,” he once told our team. He used words like familiar, comfortable, and friendship. Here in this season, I learned that one could be so familiar with the discomfort that it is preferred. As winter approached, one of our team members had a brilliant idea to give our runaway a bright orange coat so that the next time he left us, all the guesswork would be eliminated when trying to identify him from a distance.

 It worked. Troy and our ministry partner Munkhuu drove the streets in the early morning hours, searching for the orange coat boy. They spotted two boys fighting, and in the scuffle, you could see a bright orange coat. Troy drove up next to the dueling pair, and Munkhuu opened the car door, scooping him up by the back of his coat and driving off with him. He cried. He did not want to be found. 

"Why do you keep finding me?" he yelled.

He wanted to be where he felt comfortable. Sometimes the darkness is comfortable. Being found means entering into a whole new story, an entirely different life. It means over-coming things that are hard to overcome, laying down habits that we may feel we can't live without, being vulnerable in the new thing, being challenged. This boy ran away countless times. We exhausted so many hours looking for him, bringing him back, and losing him again. But our team never gave up. There was always enough grace to keep us looking. And then, one day, he stopped running. He, at last, believed he was worth a comfortable life. He decided to settle into a safe place, find safe friends, and trust the process.

That is when we truly found him. 

Found him for good.