Looking Where We Last Had It - Daughters of Promise - March 17

LOOKING WHERE WE LAST HAD IT

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb.  John 30:11

Jesus was last seen in the tomb, so when Mary discovers that Jesus’ body is missing, she begins her search there.

Losing someone can be frightening.  Some years ago, my husband and I took our two children and Scott, the six-year-old son of some close friends, to a large amusement park for the day.  I stopped to order drinks for all of us and dropped Scott’s hand to pay.  When I turned to hand him his soda, he had vanished.   For the next thirty minutes, there was sheer panic.  Scott had wandered to the other side of the park and had asked for help from someone in uniform.  We eventually recovered him in the lost and found area eating ice cream.  But my point is this: The park employees suggested we begin our search around the area where he first disappeared.

This principle extends beyond what we can see.   What are you missing today?   Perhaps it’s the ability to trust.   Where did you lose it?  Go back to where you first learned to distrust.   What happened?  How did your beliefs about life change? We were not born distrustful.  We lost trust when life’s experiences appeared to prove it invalid.  As God helps us pinpoint places on our individual timelines, the events that caused us to lose trust, he holds us while we grieve, and then he slowly begins to realign our belief system.  We can be whole.  We can be free of childhood vows of distrust that, though they protected us for a time, are no longer expedient or necessary with God as our Father.

Oftentimes we get stuck in relational ruts and think we’re doomed to live in emotional exile.  Our distrust, our cynicism, our inability to receive or give love, all these keep our hearts from thriving.  God wants to heal us and he can with our cooperation.  He wans to lead each of us on a search-and-rescue expedition. He designed us to live as much loved children in his kingdom.  Where growth was stunted, limbs can heal and bear fruit.

One last thing.  Scott is a powerful man of God, a pastor.  Some years after our incident in the amusement park, we learned that the name Scott means ‘wanderer.’

Mary’s weeping led to searching.  May my tears be proactive, Lord.  Amen

For more from Christine Wyrtzen and Jaime Wyrtzen Lauze, please visit www.daughtersofpromise.org