I was serving in Mazatlan, Mexico recently, and I met a new student who is living in the Abigail House, Back2Back’s Hope Program home for girls. She was recovering from a surgery of some sort, and I could see stitches all over her face. Some people were lamenting her appearance, but she laughed it off.
“This?” she said, pointing to her nose when someone looked at her questioningly, “This is evidence I have a God who hears me.”
I looked at her curious and with encouragement she continued, “I have been telling people for years I can’t breathe out of my nose, but no one believed me. Last year I told Jesus I want three things: a family, to see boys my age who love God and to breathe out of my nose.”
A few of us listening chuckled at her candor.
“I’ve only been here a few months, but I love these people like family. I met a boy at my new youth group who loves Jesus and my house mom believed me immediately when I told her about my nose and this last week, I had corrective surgery.”
She looked positively triumphant as she said with conviction, “Jesus heard me and he answered me.”
Jesus doesn’t have to look for sheep who are lost, he sees each one, each day and where it’s wandered, the “finding” of lost sheep is his gentle, persistent pursuit of them, his reminder to them that He is for them. He put this little sheep over his shoulder and affirms to her regularly how good it is to be home.