Lost Boy

Well, today (Saturday) Prof and I had a first as parents. This afternoon we decided to take a trip the mall (this is not the first I am going to talk about - Prof and I have been to the mall a lot in our lives). Honestly we have not been to the mall just to browse in a long time. Normally we only have time to run into one store at a time, just to get what we need and leave. However, we were having a fun family day, so we went to the mall to walk around.

We had been at the mall for a while and Wild Man was beginning to get hungry for supper. So, we began making our way towards the car, so that we could go eat supper. On the way out we saw a Gamestop. We decided to just check and see if there were any games on sale for our Wii. So, we went in and began to look. As always, Prof and I split up. Prof took the stroller (Princess T's throne for the afternoon). Wild Man was playing the video games right next to Princess T and Prof, so I headed to the back to check out the games on the back wall. A few minutes later Prof and Princess T come back to show me a game they found. When I looked up I realized Wild Man was not with them. Prof very calmly told me that Wild Man was still up front playing the video game, but when we looked there was no Wild Man to be found. As you can imagine, both of us went nuts looking for him. Prof stayed in the store, just in case he came back, I on the other hand, was a wreck. I just knew someone had taken my little boy from me. I saw a security person and began describing what Wild Man looked like. As I was telling him, in a most frantic voice I must add, a man came up to me and said, "That lady over there has your son." I immediately began running in that direction. The lady was so nice and proceeded to tell me she saw him walking around the food court crying and she asked him where he had been and he remembered something about the game store and so she was on her way to game store to see if she could help him find us. I immediately picked him up and hugged him. Then I asked him. "Why did you leave the store?" His answer was simple, "I couldn't see you and daddy so I started looking for you. " Needless to say, the walk to car happened sooner than planned and as the night went on we had lots of conversations with Wild Man about what to do if he realizes he doesn't know where we are. I don't think he will be wondering off from us anytime soon, if ever again.

I wasn't going to share this story because to some degree I felt like a bad mom for letting this happen today. However, God used this to teach me something and that I needed to share. The ironic thing about this whole story is that Prof and I never left Wild Man. In fact, if he had just said, "Daddy, Mommy where are you?" in even an indoor voice we would have heard him...that is how close we were. However, when Wild Man looked up and didn't immediately see us he began to look for us and in that process got lost. Isn't that how we are as Christians sometimes? God is right there by us. He is always near us. Yet sometimes, we don't feel like He is, or we don't "see" Him so we begin to look for Him and in the process get lost.