Editorial: Parable of the Lost Band

Editorial: Parable of the Lost Band

By Pranitha Fielder

After a morning of meetings, I realized my wedding band was missing from my finger! When I didn’t find it in my car or office, I thought I must have just left it at home.

When I arrived home after work and could not find it, panic set in. How was I to tell my husband that I had so carelessly lost something he so carefully selected for me?

I spent the next few hours calling and recalling several people to look in all the places I had visited during the day: the General Conference (GC) building, a restaurant, the office, my car. I checked the house again. Nothing turned up.

As I drove back to the GC—a last desperate attempt for my husband’s sake—I thought of the woman in Luke 15 who lost her marriage coins. I thought, if I, like that woman, could be so disheartened because I lost a material possession, how must God feel when He loses one of His beloved? I searched every square inch of the GC parking spot where my car had been and the rooms I had visited 10 hours earlier, all to no avail. I felt despondent and guilty as I headed to my car. Wait a minute! It had been raining all day; maybe it got washed away. I followed the curb around the building, ending at a drain with water rushing down into the sewers. I finally accepted reality; the band was gone.

Sacrifice for the Prodigals

As I faced the finality of leaving, one of the security officers, whom I had called several times, drove up holding my band! I cannot explain the joy that gripped me. He found it in the same parking spot I had searched just 20 minutes earlier. However, when he walked by the same parking spot, then occupied, he noticed something odd in a faint splash of water next to one of the tires—no shimmering reflection, no bulge, just something odd. He put his hand on the surface and found the band!

I called my husband then went back into the GC to share with those who had helped me search. I posted the story on Facebook, and now I’m sharing it with you.

Like the woman of Luke 15, I had to share the fact that what I lost had been found! If God could, and did, orchestrate such a big story for a little band, just imagine what He does for each of us every day.

This month, as we reflect on Christ’s great sacrifice, let’s remember the great lengths to which He went—and continues to go—in order to save His prodigal children from hopelessness.

Pranitha Fielder is the associate pastor of discipleship and congregation care at Potomac Conference’s Sligo church in Takoma Park, Md.