What floods the heart when one of our children wanders out of sight? Will we not rest until we find them? Will we not be urgent in our search?
I was sitting cutting coupons when the small missing children section on the back of the ads caught my eye. A school photo of a little boy and his digitally aged photo next to it. He disappeared at 9 years old. He'd be 35 today, the same age as my husband. And they're still looking for him after 26 years. Someone hasn't given up the search.
Do you think mothers resonated with Jesus when He said the Good Shepherd would leave the 99 sheep to find the missing 1 (Luke 15:4)? What's 1 sheep worth when you have 99 others to oversee? A mother might know if it were hers.
Jesus obviously knew. Afterall, they are His sheep. Not one is replaceable. Not one should be lost.
A handful of mama friends have had nightmarish dreams lately. Dreams where their children are missing. The panic and anguish felt as if it were playing out in real life. In their dreams, some moms had to break down a barricaded door past an armed man to get to their child. Some had to search with no help or aid from anyone around them, people who could have taken up the search as well but were unconcerned, unmoved, annoyed. In my own dream I had to ask a person who didn't speak my language to help. And while some children in the dreams were found, they had been found in horrible situations, had been abused or were being abused when their mothers finally found them. Still other children were yet missing, the mothers still frantically searching as their dream ended. Their children had been snatched, had been hidden away, had vanished without a trace. Each mother's heart raced and ached as the dreams ended, shaken to their very core.
While these dreams could be just excused as a terrible nightmare among any number of dreams, I believe The Lord is speaking to His Church. The kind of fierce determination a good mother has to keep and protect her children is God-breathed; that's His character. He's stirring the mothers, those who can't imagine losing any of their children, who will put up a fight and stop at nothing to get them back.
He knows this because He made us this way. And His children are missing. And He is not content to rest until He finds them and heals their wounds, calms their fears, restores their dignity and wraps them in His love.
Begin with praying for your role in this as a mom. One of my mom friends who had one of the dreams I described was called out of the blue and given the scripture "Listen, you women, to the words of the LORD; open your ears to what he has to say. Teach your daughters to wail; teach one another how to lament." (Jeremiah 9:20 NLT)
It's time we let loose the heart cry of God for His lost sons and daughters. His children are missing, and they are precious to Him. He desires that none should be lost (John 6:39).
“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:3-4 NIV)
Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth— (Isaiah 43:5-6 NIV)
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