Running

On Thursday afternoon, I got back from a nice long run in the 60 degree plus weather and felt refreshed. I plunked myself down on the floor for a little stretching when I heard a faint knock at my door. My neighbor and her mother were at my front door asking if I'd seen her daughter. My neighbor speaks in broken English and her mother speaks no English at all. Her eyes say a lot though.

Breathless neighbor: Eh, have you a-seen Stay-phan-ee
Me: No
Breathless neighbor: I was on the phone....ten minute...she gone

I got it. I grabbed my keys and headed out the front door with my neighbor. Her husband was already getting in the car to go search for his daughter.

I got a sick feeling in my stomach as my neighbor and I rounded the corner at the end of our street. I had heard a child screaming fifteen minutes before, screaming I thought, in a playing way; the way a kid would on the first warm day of the year. My mind started to play news stories of crazy inhumane things that happen to kids playing out in the yard.

My neighbor started to jog and then run and I felt tears in my eyes. Minutes before I had been running along listening to Paolo Nutini on my IPod and now I was running like a mad woman to find a small child. The stark differences in my motivation for running struck me.

For whatever reason at that moment I thought of God. This is probably what God feels like each time he feels like we're lost. Each time we encounter danger or temptation. Each time he feels like he might have lost us. And when he finally finds us, he finds us in a place where he may be the only person who can hear us, he hears our voice when no one else can.

I've only known my neighbor for a few short months and I ran like I was running after my own child. I can't imagine the feeling of dread and horror my neighbor was feeling as she ran after her only beloved child.

It reminds me of this verse:

"Look at it this way. If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine and go after the one? And if he finds it, doesn't he make far more over it than over the ninety-nine who stay put? Your Father in heaven feels the same way. He doesn't want to lose even one of these simple believers. " Matthew 18:13

It turns out my neighbor had rollerbladed over to another neighbor's house without her mother's permission. As we rounded the corner, I couldn't see the little girl. I didn't notice anything. But the mother heard the sound of her daughter's voice and ran to her to save her.

In that moment, I didn't hear anything. Not a sound.