Once upon a time a young lady (ok a 40ish aged lady) had a pair of silver cross earrings that held great sentimental value to her. They were not valuable from a monetary viewpoint, but she loved them nonetheless. After several years of wear and tear, one of the clasps began to loosen and did not close as securely as it once had. As a result it would often drop off her ear unnoticed.
The woman would always find the earring caught in her wavy hair, or perhaps somewhere on the floor. One day she even found the earring in the kitchen sink after it had gone missing for several days! But then, just what she was afraid of actually happened! It was gone once again and to her dismay, it was no where to be found. She looked everywhere she could possibly imagine - all the places she had found it before, in her car, and she even called every place she had been that day to see if it had been found and returned.
Nothing. No silver cross earring. Devastated at the loss, there was nothing she could do. Day after day went by and it never turned up. The woman took the remaining earring and tucked it away safely in a secure spot. Convinced the lost earring would never be found, she could not change the circumstances.
Then months went by and the unimaginable happened! Leaving for work one morning, she stopped the car on the driveway to pick up the morning paper. Leaning out the opened car door, as she reached down to pick up the newspaper, the lost silver earring lay next to it right there on the driveway!
In disbelief the woman quickly scooped it with joy! Her earring had shown up! From a distance it looked very much the same, but when she picked it up she felt the roughness, the pitts formed in the silver from being exposed to the elements. The clasp looked even worse than when she lost it. But she didn't care! It was back in her safekeeping!
Funny thing, she loved the earring even more in its worn state. In fact, it reminded her a bit of herself - battered by the elements of life's weather, broken from lying in the path of traffic on the driveway. Somehow, someway the earring found it's way home. And she loved it even more in its state of disrepair. She took the earring and gently polished and cleaned it. She had its brokenness repaired so that it could function properly again the way the silversmith intended for it to function. She loved the survival spirit of the silver cross.
The story of the cross earring reminded the woman oh so much of the love of Jesus. When we are battered, pitted, and left feeling rough by the elements of this world, if we just return to Jesus, He every so gently lifts us, polishes us, and fixes our brokenness. The ultimate Silversmith makes our wornness new, and don't you know, He is overjoyed at our return, just like the woman delighted in finding her lost earring. If you feel like the lost silver cross earring - broken, worn, pitted, lost, or alone, Jesus is standing with open arms! He took care of His own cross - and at the very same time He also took care of yours!
