Many years ago, our daughter was having a predictable day teaching her elementary school class. Predictable, planned, routinized days are, from my own experience, a blessing. At one point in the day, she realized her engagement ring was missing. There are a lot of places in a busy classroom where a ring could slip off her finger. An intense search began, retracing steps, checking the likely places – nowhere to be found.
The ring became “the lost ring.” When we lose something valuable, we can’t help but think and feel what the loss means. Material value is one concern, but the symbolic value is of a different kind. Symbols hold meaning that shapes our lives. An engagement ring contains promise, fidelity, and love. Its very design encircles lives. The lost ring was a disappointment, but what the ring meant did not change. The engagement of lives was unaffected. Love endures.
Stories can also engage us with symbol and meaning.
In John 21:1-14, after the Resurrection of Jesus, several disciples decided to go fishing. Throughout the night, they had caught nothing. At dawn, as they made for shore, a man from the shoreline advised them to cast the net again. He told them, “and you will find something.”
Indeed, they “found” an amazing catch of fish. At that moment, the beloved disciple recognized the man. “It is the Lord.”
As promised, they did “find something.” They realized their faith. They found the Risen Lord. They recognized that Jesus continued to be present, to guide, and sustain their faith. And so He does for us.
Sometimes, maybe our prayer is like fishing at night. It may seem we are looking, searching for something we sense we’ve lost. I think the work of prayer is like “casting the net,” searching for what we desire most prepares us to recognize the Lord as present, guiding, and sustaining us.
Eastertime lets us meditate on what we have found, the faith we treasure.
“But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7)
Almost a year after the ring was lost, as our daughter gathered materials from a box of paper – she found the ring. It had been there all along.
In this Eastertime, let us pray in our families for the grace to live lives of promise, fidelity, and love.