Volume 29, No.20                                  
May 16, 2004

Lost and Found

   In January 2002, home inspector Stan Edmunds got more than he was bargaining for when checking out a house in Hinsdale, New Hampshire for a potential buyer.

   To get to the attic, he had to go through a closet in which he found a shelf that, for some reason, just didn’t look right.  On his third trip through, he pulled on one of the wooden supports holding up the shelf and out popped a secret drawer!  Inside he found $20,000 in $100 bills.  Rather than keep the money, he turned it over to the heirs of the homeowner who rewarded him for his honesty with a cheque — for $50.  Edmunds gave it to charity.

   Phil Hong of Chicago was just as honest when confronted with the choice of a lifetime.  One day, the college student was looking for a dog toy in a couch he’d bought from his friend, Joe Abruzzo.  Between the cushions he found a 1996 Superbowl ring, complete with 41 diamonds and the name of star running back Walter Payton!

   It seems Payton had coached a basketball team that included Joe Abruzzo’s brother, Nicky.  To build trust, the Superbowl winner had given Nicky his ring to hold for a few days, but the boy lost it!  Cancer had claimed Payton by the time Hong found the long-lost treasure, so the college student gave it to the running back’s widow,Connie.  “This ring is what Walt Payton worked for his whole life,” he said.

   But sometimes the most valuable things are in plain view the whole time.  In Cheltenham, England, an elderly couple decided to sell a painting they’d had on their wall for decades.  They covered the canvas with a blanket and took it to Christie’s auction house where they expected to get a modest sum.  Instead, the painting turned out to be a $600,000 masterpiece by 17th Century French artist Nicolas Poussin.

   It was a much more famous name that tipped off a German couple that an old suitcase found in the loft of their home might be valuable.  An inscription on the handle read  O. Schindler.  Sure enough, the suitcase filled with musty papers had belonged to Oskar Schindler, the factory owner who saved 1,200 Jews from extermination and inspired the movie, Schindler’s List.  Among the suitcase documents was the now-famous registry of Jewish slave-labourers with fake jobs that Schindler gave the Nazis.  Today the long-lost find is preserved in Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum.

   What we learn from these vignettes is that blessings often come to us in the strangest ways.  Sometimes they only surface when we retrace the same routes and experiences several times,eventually taking time to interrupt what we’re doing and search out the things that aren’t obvious but ultimately turn out to be extremely valuable.  Even then,we may be called to pass on those blessings to someone else, with very little to show for it ourselves.

   Even when we suffer great loss because our trust is violated by others who exercise carelessness or contempt, the blessings eventually come back to us, in this life or the next.  Sometimes it’s those we love who reap the benefit instead.  Either that, or we’re on the other end of the equation, digging for dog toys when we stumble upon bonafide treasure.  It often seems God blesses us best when He sees we can let go of what He gives.

   At other times, the most precious things in our life are right in front of us the whole time.  Too often we go for years, failing to grasp the worth of simple faith, good health, good friends, meaningful work, or the ordinary, uncomplicated pleasures we overlook every day, just because they’re always available.  Nature. Music. Creativity. Family.  The rhythm of a comfortable routine in your own home.  Take a close, clear-eyed look at what you have, instead of what you want.  They may be the same and you just haven’t seen it.

   Ultimately though, we find life’s richest treasures when we recognize the Name;  truly recognize Jesus through how we think, speak and act.  “There is salvation in no one else!” (Acts 4:12)  His is the only List that counts.  We who were lost but are now found will be preserved, forever.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe, contact sgamble@bfree.on.ca