I once was lost, but now I’m found

Two old men were lost driving together through Kentucky. When they finally saw a sign on the side of the interstate for the approaching town, the old man driving said, “We're almost to “Lewis-ville.” The old man sitting beside him in the passenger seat said, “It’s “Louie-ville.”" They argued back and forth about the pronunciation for a few minutes before the driver suggested, “let’s take the next exit, go into town and ask a local, then we will listen to them carefully as they tell us the name of the town, and we will have our answer.” The old man in the passenger seat agreed that would be a fair resolution to their dispute. So the driver pulled off the interstate, and into the parking lot of a local store, and the two old men went inside. The driver pleaded with the worker inside, “Sir, help my friend and me, please. Tell us very slowly and very clearly, where are we right this minute?" The worker leans forward over the counter and tells the two older gentleman, “Bur-Gur-King.”
My grandfather use to tell that joke all the time. I don’t care how many times I heard him tell it, I laughed every time. Man, did I love him. Man, do I miss him. Ben Mullins, my maternal grandfather, was born on April 1st, 1934. He would have been 84 years old on Easter this year.
I recall our talks in his living room, our time together on his farm, and traveling with him across the country. I remember singing along beside him to "Amazing Grace" at the small country church he attended. I remember specifically the words, "I once was lost but now I'm found." My grandfather was a business man. He was an amazing man. As a teenager, he left the small Southwest, Virginia coal mining  town where he was born and raised, and headed north to learn a trade in Detroit, Michigan. He told me about arriving in Michigan and how he was called a “hillbilly.” He started a trade and a family in Detroit. Years later he decided to return south and start a business in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He told me how he was called a “Yankee.” He worked hard to build a business, and the business is still going strong today.
I remember where I was standing in my living room on the evening of May 7, 2009, when my mom called with an update on my grandfather, who had been somewhat surprisingly hospitalized a couple of days earlier. “Adam, he’s gone.” I was immediately filled with shock, with disbelief, and what followed was anger. He can’t be gone. I’m not ready for him to go. My son, John Benjamin, who was named, in part, after my grandfather, was only an infant at the time (See their last picture together above).
The following few months, scratch that, the following few years, I was lost. Lost in the basement of my split foyer home, lost in depressing songs played on repeat on YouTube, lost in more than my fair pour of Jack Daniels, lost in sadness, just lost. I felt far from God, distant from His presence. I mistakenly believed my misery somehow honored the man I missed. But then, slowly...very slowly, something amazing happened...I was found. Found by my Father. Found in need. Found in fragility. When I was lost and hiding, He found me. He gave me hope. He gave me peace, He gave me purpose and a future. He filled my heart with joy where solitary sadness once lived rent free. I once saw a social media post that pictured Bigfoot with writing across the photo, "World Hide and Seek Champion." After my grandfather's death, I gave Bigfoot a run for his money.
For some people they find their "fire" for God as easy and as instantaneous as turning the knob on a gas stove, but for me it didn't work like that. I instead slowly warmed to a boil over time. The heat increases each and every day. Hiding from God and distancing yourself from Him isn't a new concept. Adam, the first man, tried to hide from God after his sin in the Garden of Eden. Let that sink in a minute, Adam...tried...to...hide...from...God. You'd sooner conceal a horse under a dinner napkin. God of course found him. God of course found me. He will find you too, but stop trying to hide.
In Matthew and Luke, Jesus teaches using the "parable of the lost sheep." In Matthew specifically, Jesus says, "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off..." I know reading this you may be hurting, maybe you are challenged, maybe you are weak and weary, perhaps you feel lost, but don't be. God is waiting and wanting. He loves you more than you could possibly imagine. Nothing you've ever done or will ever do can change that. Take it from me, "I once was lost but now I’m found."

Much love, Adam