I am learning to share more personal stories because I have a friends who are story tellers and they are teaching me the power of stories. Well today I have waited to write this blog, because I have a story to tell you and it has taken me all day to process it. I grab my dog Hunter for our morning routine, a walk through the neighborhood across the street. No phone, I like the silence of the morning and it is a great time to hear the Lord and enjoy the crisp morning air. This morning, same route different story.

I come around the corner and I see walking up the road toward me a toddler. She is wearing pink footie pajamas and is carrying a pink blanket, in the middle of the road as calm as can be. I am shocked by the sight but I take my dog and we approach the little girl. My dog greets her with sniffs and lite kisses, she smiles and I am looking around like where are her parents? No one, I mean no one is in sight. I ask the little girl who is all of two years old, can I pick you up, so I lift her into my arms and we start walking the neighborhood looking for her parents. There is literally not a soul in sight, not a door open, not a garage propped, not a car running. Nothing.

Who is this girl? Where is her family? Where does she live? How did she get out in the street? So many questions as I am walking carrying her along. Other thoughts were this is someone’s child? What if they think I stole her? What if someone shoots at me? So many questions. What do I do with her? Where do I take her? I walk the neighborhood and then decide I will bring her home and call the police. I get to my house, tell my housemate I found a child and she is like you what? I was like I know, I have found dogs, cats, but never a child that needed rescue. I was in shock but moving, so my housemate called the police and within 10 minutes they were at our house.

After I handed her over to the police, who had the mom’s friend in the backseat of the car. The tears fell down my face, I sat in my room for hours speechless, staring at the wall, not sure what just happened and what it meant. As a mom, so many thoughts, wondering what the little girls mom was felling, thinking, and then the absolute peace the little girl displayed the whole time was stunning. It has been quite a morning, one I will never forget, but this I know for sure, my life has been marked by this moment forever. I watched the lost be found and I not only watched it, I was apart of it and it has marked me in a way I cannot yet communicate.