Lost & Found

A short story

Lost in my own world, I forget how I’ve been found.

We searched everywhere. The house, the fire station, all our vehicles, the café, and even the streets. But as the sun began to disappear, the horrifying reality that I would never find it again—suddenly became real.

“I can’t remember, I can’t remember …” My voice rose and fell, much like the heartbeat from within. “I need to remember.”

Dad walked with me, watching the street lights flicker on. “We’ll find it, Kelly,” he assured me. Dad wrapped an arm around my shoulders, trying to be comforting.

But I felt too panicked to notice. Already, my mind was in a downward spiral of the worst possibilities. Ones that I had no control over preventing. How could I lose something so precious? What would I do without it?

I kept checking my phone, seeing if Mom texted me saying she found it. But her silence gave me the answer. Looking high and low, I searched every place on the street that it could be. I dropped it, I kept telling myself. I know I did. Even though it seemed completely impossible—I knew I dropped it. There was no other explanation.

“Kelly …” Dad’s gentle voice but pensive expression told me that he was about to give up. “It’s getting dark. Maybe we should start again tomorrow.”

I twisted a finger in my fiery red hair, trying my best to keep my composure calm. I had to give him credit, he had a long day at work—as a fireman—and chose to spend the rest of his day searching for something I lost. But I didn’t want to look tomorrow. I would never sleep knowing that it was gone. How many tomorrows will it take until we find it? I asked myself. Except, I wanted no answer.

“Just … hold on, please?” I looked up at him. “Just let me think for a second.”

“Okay.” Dad nodded, seeming to understand.

He stood still on the sidewalk, watching the cars drive by. I scanned the streets and buildings around us, recollecting walking past those same places just earlier that day. But what happened? What did I do? Why did I have to get so lost in my thoughts that I had to bring myself to this situation?

I swallowed a lump in my throat, as familiar feelings arose. Glancing at Dad, I wondered if any of this reminded him of where it truly began with me. He returned my gaze, his brown eyes soft and assuring.

“You remind me of a story …” he started.

“Which one?” I hugged myself as we continued walking.

“Do you remember the story about the lady who lost her coin?”

“Uhm, no.”

“It’s in the Bible.”

“Oh.” My cheeks flushed a little bit. “Remind me of it again.”

“Well.” Dad tilted his head heavenward as if to receive some Heavenly knowledge. I slightly smiled, knowing how he did this every time he talked about the Bible. “This lady had ten special coins, but she lost one of them. And because it was very important to her she turned on a lamp, cleaned out her whole house, and spent hours searching until it was found.”

“Lucky.” I crossed my arms.

“And then …” Dad tapped my shoulder, reminding me to pay attention. “After she found it, the lady called all her family and friends to have a party with her.”

“And the moral of the story is …?” I was growing impatient.

“God never ceases from his searches.” Dad hugged me again. “He never ends them until we’re found.”

“Don’t say it like that.” I felt something prick inside my heart.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Kelly...” He stopped and stared at me, but his tone sounded apologetic. “I was talking generally about anyone and everything, not you specifically, hon.”

“Really? Because it didn’t sound that way when you started.” There was a bad combination of emotions happening at that moment.

Apparently, we were both reflecting on the same thing—just in opposite ways. I knew that in my head, but my heart was having a hard time catching up. Dad looked flustered and worried. I could tell he wanted to fix whatever was wrong because he always did. Except there were too many things stirring inside and it was getting harder to control it. I didn’t give Dad time to say anything more, I just walked faster and ahead of him.

“Wait, honey, let me talk about this …” Dad was catching up. “I’m sorry that I brought up the—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“If this is something bothering you, then you have to.”

“This isn’t the time or the place, Dad.” I had a different priority at the moment. “I need to find my journal.”

Dad was at my side again. “Then tell me this, why do you need to find your journal so badly?”

“It’s important to me.”

“Right, but why is it?”

“Dad, I’m not doing this …”

“It’s okay, we’re just talking.” Dad tried grinning, but I was too irritated to smile back. “Seriously, I want to know.”

But I didn’t answer. There were too many factors, too many words, and too much of Kelly written all inside the pages of that journal. A writers work is sacred, I’ve always said. And I wanted to keep it that way. More than that, I wanted to find that journal and pretend none of this happened.

“Oh!” I gasped, my hand covering my mouth. “Oh! The park. I dropped some books at the park earlier.” Without question, I turned around and ran down the sidewalk. Dad was calling for me to slow down, but I had to hurry.

The night hours quickly sneaked up on us, making me only able to see by the mercy of the street lights. I came to the intersection that crossed over into the park, took a quick check, took two steps on the street, and—

“KELLY!”

I was violently jerked off the street and half fell onto the curb, just as a car—with no headlights—sped passed. My heart stopped for several seconds, while my dad grabbed my arms and pulled me up to my feet.

“S-Sorry I—” I stuttered, unable to fully process what just took place. Dad’s grip remained on my shoulders and I watched as tears filled his eyes. Mine did too.

“Why?” Dad’s voice was barely a whisper. He shook so badly that it was shaking me a little. I scared him and knew it. “Why is that journal so important to you, that you almost got killed over it? What’s in it that you can’t live without?”

My heart broke into a million pieces as I struggled to confess, “My heart.”

---

*Earlier that Day*

Lost in my own world, I forget how I’ve been found.

My pen scratched away speedily, its dark ink bleeding right through the page. I stopped for a moment, to consider what I wrote. What am I saying? I tried asking myself because I really had no idea. Hovering my pen over the page, I waited for something to come out.

Sometimes I feel lost in my own world. The reality that says everything happens for a reason. A reason that no one can explain, not even myself.

Ouch. Why was I being so deep? I glanced up from my journal, spotting a group of girls passing me. I tucked in closer to the school library corner, before continuing:

But then I read a book and somehow, things start to change. Instead of the constant uncertainty of my life being just “an average Jane,” I imagine the possibilities of changing the world.

I held my breath for a moment. I knew these next words would be dangerous. Leaning my head against the wall, I stared at the bookshelves surrounding me.

“How’s a 16-year-old adopted bookworm going to change the world?”

The statement sounded worse out loud than hidden in my thoughts. The way I imagined it, I would end up being a librarian for the rest of my life. Which I couldn’t really complain about. But change the world? My eyes fell on the hundreds of books stacked away neatly in their proper places. A warm feeling soaked my heart as I continued:

There’s just something powerful about the finely pressed pages, compiled into a book. Whenever I read them, I am taken into a different reality. A reality that says “I can …” to anything. I can be a biologist who discovers a new animal species. I can be a doctor and find a cure to a disease. I can be an advocate for voiceless people and end world hunger.

Or … I can be a private investigator, dedicated to reuniting lost families.

A tear splashed onto my journal, immediately causing the ink to smear. Even on paper, it didn’t make sense. But, oh, my heart. It was there. Among the wet and running ink, that stained my fingers. But I kept writing:

Yes, sometimes I get lost in my own world. So I try escaping into a different one by reading myself away or writing myself in. I find a reality and take it, or I create one and own it. And for a fleeting moment, everything seems to make sense a little more. But is that how I’m found?

I had to stop because ink was everywhere at that point. Taking several moments, I cleaned and dried the journal paper as best as I could. Then, closing it shut I held it against my chest. Its leather texture and overly stuffed pages somehow felt soothing. I always imagined every story, poem, or heart-spoken word I had written, all reached from its pages and straight into my heart. Any time life didn’t make sense, my sacred words painted in ink, helped make the world so much brighter.

Scrambling up to my feet, I wiped my wet face, adjusted my glasses, and smoothed out my fiery red hair. Grabbing my backpack, I strolled through the library, selecting a book every now and then. By the time I reached the checkout, I had over five books. The usual order, really.

Lost in my own world, I forget how I’ve been found.

I thought about it for a while, as I left the school library and proceeded on my walk home. How have I been found? I smiled at the thought, thinking of my dad. My adoptive dad, that is. I thought of all the church lunches, family bible studies, and family dinners—where he proudly shared his heroic story of becoming mine.

Rather, how I became his.

“I was helpless,” Dad would say. “I wanted a kid.” He would look at my mom, hold her hand, then correct himself. “We wanted a kid.”

Then, he went on to explain the highlights of his busy work day as a fireman. Two car accidents, one brush fire, and a whole bunch of false alarm calls. He was about to clock out of his shift when a friend from the police department called, saying they got a report about a toddler walking alone, toward the fire station. So Dad searched. With his big red truck, he looked high and low in every area around the fire station.

“I just kept thinking,” Dad always explained, “This is someone’s kid. She has to be found.” He would start crying, along with whoever he was telling the story to. “But what I didn’t know, is that she was my kid.”

Dad said he prayed during the whole search because God was the best at finding lost ones. It wasn’t until almost a whole hour later when he spotted a toddler running down the sidewalk—toward him.

“Maybe it was the red truck,” Dad would joke, “or maybe she knew help arrived. But I never saw a little toddler run the way she did.”

He parked the truck in the middle of the street, leaped out, and ran across the road for me. We met on the sidewalk, where Dad immediately picked me up and carried me away in his big red truck.

Dad would end the story with, “I found her, but she really found me.”

But there were so many missing pieces to the story, that no one—not even the police investigators—could figure out. Like, why I was alone in the first place or why no one called for a missing/lost child. Those were the pieces of my story that I tried filling every day.

Briskly walking through the park, I glanced at the stack of books I carried. By then, my arms were aching from the heaviness of them but I hardly cared. But when I tripped over a rock, they all came crashing down.

“I read books, I write stories,” I mumbled to myself, as I collected each one. Some I put inside my backpack, and the rest I carried. “I create a life that makes sense, rather than living one that leaves me wondering.”

But was that fair?

Dad always said that adding me to his family was God’s destiny. Once, he explained how the Lord works everything out for our good. So maybe those missing answers about myself were filled by the life I had now. I want to believe that, I thought. But it got difficult, sometimes.

I came to the fire station—as I always did—and hung around the truck. Dad came by and we talked about random firefighter stuff before he got a call and had to take off. I walked the long way home, stopped at a café for coffee, then finally made it home.

Sometimes when I get lost in my own world, I forget how I’ve been found.

I tried telling myself that this was it. This was me getting lost in everything, but no matter how hard I tried—I couldn’t shake it. In my room I cried, I prayed, I read, none of it seemed to work. But it all came crashing down right when Dad got home, and I discovered that my journal was nowhere to be found.

Every form of comfort and peace was completely stripped away from me at the realization of my missing journal. Everything that I was, all written on those pages, was lost.

“It’s gone!” I cried the second he walked in.

“What’s gone?” Dad looked as concerned as I did.

“My journal! I have to find it.” I felt like a little kid, screaming over something so small. But Dad didn’t seem to feel that way, he hugged me before I had a chance to start crying.

“It’s okay, we’ll find it,” he assured. “I’m great at finding things, remember?” He smiled proudly. “God knows where it is and he’ll help us get it back.”

And off we went to start the search.

---

Lost in my own world, I forget how I’ve been found.

Those words echoed in my mind as an ugly, deep cry escaped my lips. “My heart!” I burst into tears. “Without it, I’m lost, Dad, I’m lost!”

“Kelly …” Dad’s grip was still on my shoulders, but he stared into my eyes with such intent. “You’re never lost.”

“I’ve always been lost.” My knees shook and I felt every possible weight of my reality crash on me.

“No, no, no.” Dad pulled me into a hug, holding me so I wouldn’t break away. “Is that what you believe?”

“It’s true!” I sobbed, burying my face in his chest.

“Kelly, you’ve always been found.” Dad kissed the top of my head and squeezed me tighter. “God found you long before I did, hon. And when he finds you, you’re eternally found. Never again lost.”

“How?”

“It’s his promise to never leave us, even if we try leaving him.” Dad kept holding me but lifted my head so I could see his big-teary eyes. “It’s impossible to get away from God, intentionally or accidentally. Trust me, I know.”

“You do?” I sniffled.

“I do.” He smiled softly. “I was lost too, you know. But God found and adopted me, even though I couldn’t figure out why.”

I wiped my face. “Have you figured out why yet?”

Dad’s big, wide grin spread across his face. “I did.” Kissing my forehead again he simply said, “It’s love. Love finds us and keeps us forever, whether we like it or not. With love, we can never be lost.”

We stayed there, on the sidewalk, until I managed to stop crying. Then we went home. Strangely, I had no sudden craving to read a library book that night. Instead, I read the Bible. Dad didn’t tell me, but the chapter about the lady with the lost coin has a bunch of other stories like that.

God seeking, finding, and rejoicing. Over and over again, he sought, found, and rejoiced. Not once does it mention getting lost “again” or remaining lost. No, everyone is always found.

Dad was right.

The next morning, I woke up extremely late. So late, I missed school. I got a text from Dad to meet him at the fire station, so I did. I found him in the garage, next to the fire truck, grinning wildly.

“Kelly!” He greeted me so loudly, that I covered my ears.

“Uhm, yes?” I cocked my head curiously and half laughed at him.

“I told you I’m good at finding things.” Dad held out his hands, revealing my lost journal.

“Oh!” I practically jumped into his arms, laughing and half crying. “Where did you find it?!”

“Believe it or not …” Dad held back a smile. “The school library lost and found box.”

I blinked at him in complete disbelief. Then, for some reason, we both started laughing. Maybe it was the irony or just the pure joy. But whatever it was, it made us both happy.

“Here …” I took my journal, opened it to the last pages I used, and ripped them out. “Got a pen?”

“Of course.” Dad gave me one, while I gave him permission to throw out the old papers.

I scratched away speedily, allowing the ink to pour over the page.

Lost in my own world, I forget how I’ve been found. In a reality that says everything happens for a reason. A reason that no one can explain, not even myself—is completely answered by an unbreaking fact. So I can march through this life, knowing that wherever I go I belong because:

I have been found by love.

---

Foundation Scriptures:

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’”

(Luke 15:8-9 NKJV)

“[nothing], shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”

(Romans 8:39 NKJV)

Personal Thoughts:

While writing this story, I frequently thought back on my 14-16 year old self, remembering the insecurities, questions, and doubts that I buried inside of the books I read and stories I wrote. I tried discovering who I was through what I did, forgetting that God already wrote my story, long before I was ever born (Psalm 139:16).

Much like Kelly in the story, we all have faced (at some point in our lives) that moment where we feel completely lost. The things in our lives that happen may never make sense to us, but Jesus is always there to help us finish the chapter. And then, we start the next one with Him.

Through the highs and lows of life, we can always be assured that once we are Sons & Daughters of God, we are forever Sons & Daughters of God. We will always be found by Him because He loves us!

So remember today that … you’re not lost! You are found by love 💜

Thank you for reading!

All photos by:

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash