Some readers will know I prefer gardening to housework, after all you can’t eat a nicely polished table, but a home-grown tomato is fabulous.

However, when it comes to socks, I am meticulous. They must be in pairs! The only use I have for an odd sock is to make a glove puppet and there are only so many of those that you need.

If a sock goes missing, I immediately launch a full investigation. A detective inspector from a crime novel would be proud. The absence of a sock normally comes to my notice when I am pegging out the washing. (Naturally, socks are always pegged out in pairs). Is it still in the basket? No! Next is it still in the washing machine? A few turns of the drum to check that. Did it remain in the dirty laundry box? Next check the bedroom floor. Has it dropped in transit? When was the sock last worn? Did it end up tangled in the bedclothes? When all these avenues have been exhausted it is time to check the garden. Is it lying in the vegetable patch? No, then it must be somewhere on the line. And there it was stuck up the sleeve of a fleece already drying in the breeze! How pleased I was to find that lost sock!

Now, unless you are down to your last pair of socks all this might seem a bit trivial, but it reminds us of a much less trivial message.

The Parable of the Lost Coin

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”   Luke 15:8-10

How happy Heaven is when we are truly sorry for the mess we have made of our lives and turn to Jesus it is like lost treasure found again.

Enid