B E H I N D / T H E / B A R

Her mom and dad were standing in our shop today, they looked so weary and worried. They had driven to Chattanooga from Ohio to find their daughter who had gone off the grid and they hadn’t heard from her in a while. They knew she was in a dark place spiritually, emotionally and physically and so they came to town to find her.

Michael, our resident video game master and work in progress had been in earlier in the day all grumped up about “somebody done gone and gotten mad and he was through wit dem, just through! Real talk!”  Ms Sarah, our regular Wednesday volunteer prayed with Michael and asked God to show him His purpose for him today.

It was about an hour later that Michael came in with this mom and dad  I heard him say, “this man will help you!”  I walked over, introduced myself and began to hear their frightening story of their daughter and how they hadn’t heard from her.

I didn’t have a clue how to help them. They showed me a picture of her but unfortunately I had never seen this girl a day in my life.  I told them that we would keep our eye open for her but in the mean time we would pray that they find her.  “In fact,” I asked ” can we pray now that you find her?”  They were more than willing. So we gathered our volunteers and staff together in a circle and we prayed, “God you know where this daughter is, please help these parents find her. In Jesus name we ask, Amen.”  We talked about a couple of possibilities where they might look for her. Michael, who joined us for prayer said “Im on this one!”  Immediately he left  with mom and dad to find their girl.

I’m not even sure an hour went by before I got a text from the parents that they had found their daughter!!!!
We celebrated back at Cadence. We celebrated because they found their girl. We celebrated because Michaels prayer for purpose was answered today. We celebrated that we had the opportunity to be part of someone else’s story. We celebrated because God knew exactly where this girl was, she was lost but now she’s found.

This past Sunday I shared this passage in my sermon. What a cool way to see that God really does care about the lost sheep!!!

““If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish.”  Matthew‬ ‭18:12-14‬ ‭NLT‬‬