On any given day, there’s a lot of stuff in our house that doesn’t belong to us.  As I type, we are cohabiting with: a complete set of girls’ clothes (not Raya’s), a green and black Nerf football, a metal baking dish, a wooden stacking baby toy, a brand new men’s sport jacket, a child’s sun hat, a George Foreman grill, and an itty bitty remote control (we have no idea what it controls.)

Oh, and the socks.  There are always at least half a dozen kid socks that I don’t recognize.  They go into the Lonely Socks basket in the laundry room.  This is not because I think there is the slightest chance that their mates will be found–they never will.  It just makes me feel less guilty for throwing them out when, 3 months later, they are still lonely.  (Another fact about Mystery Kid Socks: no one else whose child has ever been in your house will recognize them, either.)

Those of you who know me and my preference for order and tidiness (some of you are thinking of other ways to describe my preference: shame on you!) might assume that the presence of all these things bothers me.  I might have thought so too, in the past.  But I enjoy living in the Lost and Found house.  Each item represents a face and a name that I know and love.  That set of little girl’s clothes is here because Makenna came to spend the night with us when her mom had to go to the emergency room.  The sun hat belongs to Mary.  She wore it last Wednesday evening, when she and her brother teamed up and beat me with foam bats in the basement.  The baking dish held the dessert her dad made for all of us.  The baby toy is my fault: Marty’s mom left it for me to give to baby Jaylene, our youngest member; but I keep forgetting.

I think stuff tends to accumulate here because everyone knows they’ll be back soon.  If something is left behind, it’s not a big deal.  I love it that they feel that comfortable in our home.  It’s their home, too.  And I think it’s as good a place as any for the lost to be found.

Oh, it turns out that the George Foreman grill belongs to my sister, Jamie, who lives here with us.  So that mystery is solved.  Let me know if you have any clues about the remote control.

-Jaclyn

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” – Acts 4:32