The Day Our Ministry Changed Forever

It was a hot summer day.  My husband was a Youth Pastor at the time and we had taken our youth group to the beach.  We had set up a base camp area alongside the dunes where our gazebo tent shielded our coolers and snacks from the blazing sun.  My son, then 6, was having the time of his life with a boogie board. My daughter, then 4, was hard at work building a sandcastle.  Our team of chaperones sat at the edge of the water, chair bottoms in the water as our feet were constantly lapped by the ocean waves.  We talked about unimportant things while scanning the water and keeping and eye on our brood of teens.

"Mama, can I go get a snack?" My daughter, Anna, was rinsing her sandy hands off in the ocean and looking to me for an answer.  I looked back at the base camp.  A snack did sound good.  "Yes! Will you bring me a snack too?"  She nodded her head and took off passing my husband as he walked toward our group of ladies sitting on the edge of the water. 

We laughed and talked  for a few minutes and then went into the water to cool off.  Oh it was so hot, and the water cooled and relieved. Then it dawned on my husband and I at the same time.  Where was Anna?  We looked back at the base camp. No Anna. We looked over at the heap of sand that was her special castle. No Anna.  We looked over at my son who was still boogie boarding.  No Anna.  Suddenly, a crushing weight of fear sat heavy on my heart.  Panic ran across my face.  We looked at our group of chaperones and said, "Did any of you see Anna?"  Panic, like a virus, spread to them.  We all began calling and searching our area of the beach. 

"Anna, where are you?" Like God in the garden searching for his beloved Adam and calling out to him, we called for our child.  

There were seas of people as far as the eye could see.  We looked for a tiny, sweet, princess in a pink heart bathing suit.  Strangers in our area joined in the hunt.  A lifeguard was alerted and began the pursuit.  He advised us to stay where we were in case she made her way back to base camp.  In that time of waiting, I cannot tell you how many thoughts flooded my mind.  Guilt and condemnation pressed inward invading my heart. Like a sharp sword, they cut.  A week before heading to the beach I had just finished a book about a little girl being abducted called The Shack.  I looked at the hotels along the beach. Was my baby in one of those rooms?  I saw the parking lot area. Did some monster drive off with her?  I looked out at the water terrified we would find her little body floating amid the waves.  I looked over at my husband afraid that he would hate me forever.  He was pacing and praying.  "God please .....," I whispered, too broken to say anything else, too afraid to have hope, and too afraid to not have hope.

After what seemed like the longest 20 minutes of my life, we saw the lifeguard racing toward us on a green gator.  He stopped. One of the chaperones jumped off, running with Anna tightly in her arms.  We fell to our knees weeping.  She put her down, and Anna slowly walked over to us with a snack still in her hand.  With her head down and eyes that seemed afraid to look at us, my daughter asked, "Daddy, are you mad at me?"

What? Mad at her? We were beyond happy, overjoyed, relieved, ecstatic, that she was back in our arms! At that point I didn't care what had led to her getting lost.  My baby was alive, and she was back! 

"Look at me. I am not mad at you baby," my husband fought through crying to answer my daughter.  We held eachother and continued to cry.  "Here's your snack Mama," she held out the silver package.

We discovered that when Anna reached the tent and found the snacks, she looked out and because the beach was packed that day and because we were in the water cooling off, she did not see us.  She walked along the edge of the water looking out to find us until the lifeguard and our lifesaver chaperone spotted her, nearly a mile down the beach from where we were.  She had just turned around and started heading back in our direction.  The whole time, she held the snack that I had asked her to bring back for me. 

Afterwards my husband and I discussed how easy it was for her to head into the direction that she thought was right, but was actually further and futher from where she needed to be.  Isn't that easy to do? Isn't that what happens in life?  We don't intentionally head toward divorce.  We don't intentionally head toward broken relationships. We don't intentionally head toward addictions.  We think that we can find what we are looking for in working and achieving even if it comes at a cost. When we don't seem to find what we are looking for, we continue walking toward yet something else that feels right.  And when we finally get to where we feel like we need to turn around, when we finally realize we might actually be lost and heading in the wrong direction, we begin to wonder if our daddy is mad at us.  What is daddy going to say to me when I do get back home?  Is he going to be mad at me for walking away from him? Will he be mad at me for doing what I thought was right? 

The Prodigal Son story took on new meaning for us that day.  While everyone likes to examine the wild life of the son, we as parents really understood to the best of our human ability, the heart of God toward those who are far away from Him.  How deeply He longs for them to return. How intensely He desires for them to be alive and well.  How overjoyed He is when they return.  Mad? Never.  Upset that they were in pig pens? No way. So in love with them that He would give everything for them to be alright and back safely where they belong? Absolutely.  Which is why He did.

How we focus so much on behavior, when God is concerned with the person.  His heart beats with a rhythm that says, "I don't care what you've done. You are mine, and I love you more than you could ever imagine."  He is constantly calling out for us, ready for us to come home.  When I see a person who is far from God, my heart breaks because I understand how God's heart aches for them to come back to him.  I understand how God longs for them to be alive in Christ and not dead in sin.  I remember my beach prayers, "...Just let her be alive Lord." Longing and aching.

"Give us your heart Lord, so that we can love others the way you love."  That was my prayer before our beachtrip.  God is faithful to answer our prayers.  I didn't enjoy the way he did it, but in His Grace and faithfulness, He changed my husband and I forever. He changed us, changed our hearts, and changed the way we minister.