Blue Dog

Blue Dog was missing, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Where could he be? Blue Dog is Will's absolute favorite thing... a tiny (maybe 1 inch long) blue plastic dog that he found at his Grandma's house and no one knows where it came from. Irreplaceable. Beloved. Easily lost.

Jon and I remembered seeing Blue Dog when I was painting Will's face, getting ready to go to the Pumpkin Patch Party at "the big church" (Will dressed as Blue Dog... in a Blue's Clues costume). But we couldn't remember if Will had brought Blue Dog in the van with us. Was he lost at home or at the giant party in the midst of thousands of people? Through careful examination of our photos taken at the party, we determined that BD did not make it far into the party if he went there at all. The next morning when I took Anna and Will to school at "the big church" (aka "school"), I looked in the parking lot where we had parked the night before, and I looked around the entrance of the festivities, but no Blue Dog. We had already searched our house and the van, and had begun to lose hope, trying to figure out how we might be able to replace Blue Dog. After school and Anna's field trip to a pumpkin patch, Anna and I returned to the parking lot to look one more time before picking up Will from class.

Maybe the sunlight was different; maybe I had looked in the wrong place earlier. But there, where we had parked the night before, laying on his side after a long night out in the cold, was Blue Dog!! I couldn't believe it! I hugged Anna (who just looked at me like I was crazy). Blue Dog once was lost, but now was found! I thought of the story of the lost sheep, and how God loves us so much that He will go to every length to seek out those who are lost from Him, and how even the angels in heaven rejoice when the lost are found. As a parent searching for her son's most beloved toy, I got a sweet glimpse into the heart of God.