When you are 2 years old, you usually have a “friend” of some kind that really matters to you, a blanket, a choo-choo train, an old washcloth. Who knows what it is or what makes a small child determine the infinite worth of this friend. The relationship just is. No one needs to question it, parents learn. You simply support the existence of said friend like he is one of the family.

Our Zeke had a friend named Cocoa.

Cocoa was a small, deep chocolate brown beanie-baby like dog. He went everywhere with us. He slept in bed with Zeke. He ate dinner, sitting on a chair, at the table with Zeke. He moved to Haiti with Zeke and the rest of our family.

When we had to leave Haiti in a whirlwind, Cocoa somehow got left behind.

Have you ever had such a friend of your own like Cocoa? If you have, maybe you can feel the same tightness in your chest as you read the words “left behind” that I still do typing them, four years later. Zeke lost a friend, and while I’m sure our grief and struggle of the season played into it, the loss of Cocoa felt like the loss of a dear living, breathing friend. Silly? Maybe. But I think God gets it. He gets our nature toward attachment and safety and needing something tangible to remind us that we are loved and precious in His sight.

Take the road with me back to Luke 15, back to the beginning of our study. There’s that prodigal father, running toward his son, down a road. There are also two stories about a man and a sheep and a woman and a coin. A sheep and a coin seem like really basic objects when you think about the context of Scripture and our own context and the roads we walk today.

But to these people, they were kind of like a Cocoa.

These objects, these things, were things God used to show the people in the story about His faithfulness and His love. Jesus used the stories to teach the people, probably gathered right off a road somewhere or in someone’s house, that God values us so much, He would search high and low for us.

Read each of these stories for yourself. Read them slowly, and note everything before the moment of complete exultation when the lost thing is found.

Luke 15:1-10

Eight months after we lost Cocoa, eight months after our lives were turned upside down for reasons beyond Cocoa, but certainly not completely separate from that tiny brown lost dog either, Zeke walked into Grandma’s house and ran like no tomorrow up to the table where a little brown dog was waiting for him. Grandma had found Cocoa’s twin online and had him shipped all the way from England, all just to see that moment of joy on a little boy’s face.

Cocoa, who was lost to Zeke, was now found. He took that tiny dog in his arms, strapped a leash on it, ran out into the path that runs in front of Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and walked him up and down and up and down the path for all to see.

God wants to be our thing.

He wants us to feel about Him the way Zeke felt about Cocoa. Like life isn’t quite right without Him. Like all our joy revolves around being with Him and dancing with Him and walking with Him and hugging Him.

He feels that way about us. He dances when we’re with Him. He’s perfect, so maybe His joy doesn’t revolve around us, but He does find so much joy in us that He’ll move heaven and earth and crosses and stone tombs to get to us.

This joy of being the found thing, the loved sheep, the silver coin no longer hidden under the couch cushions with the chip crumbs and gross unidentifiable pieces of fruit — this demands a party hat, friends. You know, those ridiculous pointy hats with the mildly uncomfortable elastic string hanging from them?

God has found us on our road. God sees us on our road. God walks and runs and dances with us on our road. I think that’s worthy of a little ridiculousness.

Let’s join them;

let’s join the ranks of the undignified found.

Imagine the looks of the parties in Luke 15:

a shepherd hoisting a bleating, probably messy, dirty sheep on his shoulders and calling to his neighbors on roads all around him to celebrate

a woman, dusty from searching nooks and crannies, knees worn with prints from scouring around on the floor, running into the streets to holler to her friends of the joy of being able to buy bread, buy oil, not lose her house

and a father, robes flapping, party prepping, dragging out the good wine, welcoming his son home

When God finds things, when we are a part of being found, and reaching out to the lost so they can be found:

There is whooping on that road.

There is hollering on that road.

There is reconciling on that road.

There is repenting on that road.

There is making room on that road.

There is grace and goodness and glorious joy on that road.

And that road is our every road, every day, because we live on the road marked found.

Let’s act like found people … party hats and all. ;)

Up Next: A new 3-part article and podcast series on Vulnerability and Boundaries, Lack and Enough, Courage and JOMO

In the Meantime: Wow! Have we enjoyed this journey of roads with you all. Thank you for sharing your heart and mind and experiences with us along the way. Please take a minute to answer our six question survey to inform what we offer at heidigoehmann.com

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