Lost and found

What a week this has been trying to get back into work when almost every aspect of my life has changed.  As of two weeks ago, I felt completely lost and overwhelmed while moving into my new classroom.  However, with the help of our lady custodians finding me available furniture that fit my personality and teaching style, I finally purged enough, reorganized, and got the room to feel like it's mine.  Now I'm rather excited about starting the year.  Change is good, and I feel like I'm starting with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for teaching.  To think that I get these kids while they're fresh and ready to learn is exciting, as well as knowing that I get to be the one to set the bar, train the parents, and instill in them a love to learn.  I will have two classes, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  That equals 48 kids, 44 of whom I got to meet on Thursday night.  I have two sets of twins in my morning class, and I also found out that I have the daughter of our custodian at church.  He's a young Hispanic guy, and I was surprised that he recognized me immediately as someone from the church. :) 

Moving my stuff out of my old classroom and away from my teammates left me with an incredible sense of loss, but now that I'm settled in my new room with my new assistant, my new teammate, and my new "neighbors", I found the excitement and enthusiasm that I didn't know I'd been missing. 

I guess this whole adoption experience has gotten me thinking about the concept of being lost and then found.  The lengths that God went to to find Juan David and Julian and join them with our family has really spoken to me about how God sees all the details of our lives and has complete control over them.  He doesn't miss anything, not even the minutest detail. 

This very week I've lost three, no four, quite important things.  I wanted to beat myself up each time for being so careless.  Yet God eventually gave me a sense of peace that He knew exactly where my missing items were.  If I needed them, He had all the ability to lead me to them.  If not, I could trust Him that I lost them for a purpose--He was still in control. 

First, I lost my flashdrive.  Not just any flashdrive.  The one that held a digital copy of ALL of our adoption documents.  Quite a bit of personal information.  If anyone picked it, they could very easily steal our identity.  Here I'd been so careful with it for those five weeks in Colombia, and then in one careless move back home, it was gone.  I assumed it had broken and fallen on the ground in one of two very public places.  When I couldn't find it, I just prayed that God would allow it to be run over or destroyed in some way.  Four days later, the boys found it, broken just like I assumed, but stuffed way down inside the couch.  Whew!

Later in the week, I got an important paper in the mail with account information and a # that I needed to call by a certain day.  I carefully put it somewhere that I would not lose it or forget to call.  Yet in one careless move, it disappeared.  Not only did I need the information on that piece of paper that very day, but I also freaked out about it getting into the wrong hands.  Once again, I was reminded that God knew exactly where that little piece of paper was, and my assistant found it on the floor in my classroom.  Relief!

A few days later, I came home from the doctor after getting x-rays because I tripped over the dog.  (No broken bones, thankfully).  I didn't even think about how eerily quiet the house was when I got home until we got ready to leave at five in the afternoon.  The dogs had gotten out the back gate much earlier in the day and were now long gone!  The shelter would not be open until Monday morning to even call to see if they'd been reported.  Driving around looking for them didn't do any good because they'd already been gone for several hours.  I didn't even want to think about how heartbroken both boys would be if we didn't find those dogs.  God reminded me again that He knew where they were, so we just prayed for them to be protected.  Later that evening, a friend showed me how to look online for any dogs that had been taken to the shelter that day.  I went to the link, and lo and behold, there they were!  The pics had been posted less than an hour earlier.  Thank goodness!  (As I write this, they are sitting in doggie jail at the shelter until we can pick them up.  Hoping the jail fee isn't too much, but it's worth it to at least know where they are).  Those dogs will be officially grounded when they get home. 

Now, if I could get through this week without losing anything important, that would be nice.  But at least I'm reminded that God sees it all, from the abstract sense of loss, to two big black dogs, to a tiny little flashdrive stuffed in the couch.