recovering the lost

I've been expecting a package for quite a while.

A few weeks back I checked with the folk from whom the thing was being sent to see what the state of play was. It was something I'd sent for repair, and the promise they'd made was the thing would be done in three weeks. Since more than the three weeks had passed, it seemed like a good ting to do to start following all of this up.

Like - where is the thing?!

They'd checked their files. They'd sent if off in May. They told me the name of the carrier, and assured me I should have received it the following day.

I assured them I hadn't.

So they did some more of their checking, contacted the carriers they use, got back to me saying the carriers had tried to deliver but no one was there - and since there'd been no reply to their card, they'd sent the thing back to the firm who'd been doing the repair.

Who in turn had been asked to send it out again.

I told them that there hadn't been a card put through my door. Which would explain, of course, why there'd not been any reply to the card.

Well, I've been trying in vain to suss it all out and to get my hands on this package. And I've finally found out the root of the problem there's been.

Two tiny mistakes. One with my name. The other with my address.

Somewhere down the line the 'M' at the start of my name has been read by a scribe as an 'H'. The package was addressed, it seems to a hitherto unknown 'Mr Hiddleton'.

And somewhere down the line as well, perhaps through an over-worked scribe who's suffering from double vision, the '1' which is my street number has become an '11'.

Two tiny mistakes. But enough to ensure the package was utterly lost.

Today I finally tracked it down. A clear 'sighting'. It was back again in the carrier's Edinburgh base.

Leave it right there, I cried. I'm coming to get it myself.

I fear it might have been a life-long vigil I'd have had if I'd kept waiting for the thing to be delivered. The only way I'd be sure of getting it back was by going for the thing myself.

This is 'shepherd' ministry. I'd a hundred and one other things to be doing. But I dropped them all there and then and went off in search of this one little 'sheep' (in the shape of my package) that was lost.

And, oh, what rejoicing there was in the heart of this 'shepherd' today when the package I'd lost was now found!

Most of the work that we do is along those lines. Recovering the lost, one by one.

Waiting around in the hope that the 'sheep' that are lost will pitch up is a pretty vain hope. We have to take steps ourselves to recover them one by one.

I've spent weeks hunting down this package that somehow got lost. Weeks of relentless, single-minded pursuit, 'til I'd managed to get the thing back.

I had to make all the calls. I had to make all the running. I had to go to the place where the package was stuck.

That's what shepherds do: they leave the hundred and one little things they could and should be doing - and they chase down the one 'sheep' that's lost.

One by one 'til the flock are all found in the fold.

The thing that was broken is mended. The package once lost is now found.

It's a graphic little cameo of what my life is like!