​I reached for my sunglasses, where they’d been, hooked on the neckline of my top, but they weren’t there. I tapped the top of my head. Not there. Even though I was certain I’d worn them into Butterfield’s market, I still checked the console in my car where I sometimes set them and in the sunglasses holder up top where I should store them, and in the middle compartment. Nothing. 

I got down on the floor of my car, in case they’d slipped. I picked up my purse and dug through it. Kleenex, coupons, and candy, but no sunglasses. By now, my mom and kids were back at the car.
“What’d you lose?”
“My sunglasses,” I mumbled.
“Did you check the register?”
“Are they in the greenhouse?”
We all went back inside and retraced our steps through mounds of dark orange pumpkins, crazy-shaped gourds, giant pots of mums, and bales of straw. They weren’t lying on the counter where I’d paid. The greenhouse, warm from the sun and fragrant with heady mums didn’t seem to be hiding them. We milled through the barrels of apples, bags of caramel corn and jugs of cider, but my sunglasses were nowhere to be found. What looked like an entire freshman corridor of college students trickled in for a hayride, making it difficult to even walk through the market, let alone continue my search. In one final effort, I left my name and number with the girl working the checkout, in case they turned up.
 
Have you lost something recently? Your keys? Your folder? Your phone? Some days I think I’m losing my mind. We search frantically on our way out the door for that cleat, that notebook, that bill we were going to drop in the mailbox. We scramble and scurry to find the things we’ve misplaced. We’ll stop everything to look for that one thing.
 
"If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won't he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?” –Matthew 18:12

​Jesus says we are the thing He’ll drop everything else to find.
 
You know how desperately you want to find your debit card? That phone number? The email you misplaced in your inbox? Your other earring? You know how you look and search and barely talk to anyone as you’re single-mindedly searching for it? That’s how desperately Jesus wants to hang out with us, the lengths He’ll go to to be with us, the extent of which He loves us. He’d stop everything to look for me? Yes. He’d stop everything to look for you, too.
 
When I got home I opened my trunk and grabbed a pot of crimson mums
“Mom! Stop! There they are!” My daughter yelled.
I looked down not registering what she was talking about. There were my sunglasses intertwined among the stems of flowers. Laugher. Relief. I snagged the shades and popped them back on my face.
 
And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn't wander away! --Matthew 18:13
 
Jesus rejoices when He finds us, when we let Him find us, when after hiding out among the flowers or the apples or the pumpkins we are finally looking at Him, listening to Him. He laughs. He sighs. He grabs us and pulls us close.

While grabbing an apple in the kitchen to fight off a mid-day stomach growl, I heard an erratic banging from the dining room. I peeked around the corner to spy a large black bird flapping his wings and flying straight toward one of the windows--crash—hitting it so hard, he fell back to the ground in a feathered heap. Was he dead? How long had he been down here? How in the world did a bird get in our house?
 
The bird quickly answered my first question—he was not dead—by rearranging his body, raising his wings and aiming straight toward another window, only to repeat the whole crashing and crumpling scene. A close-up wild bird is very different than gazing at one flittering through the trees. He appeared so much gawkier, louder, and infinitely crazier. My instinct was to get him OUT! But he was like a lunatic, also probably severely concussed, so I avoided his hysterical flapping (I did not want him plummeting into me) by ducking through the hallway to open the front door. I swung the wooden door in and the storm door out, sliding the catch so it would stay open, all while talking to the bird as if it were a toddler, “Come on bird. Here’s the door. You can go outside now. Here you go.” But where did he go? He was nowhere in sight.
 
I followed my ears to the clatter of colliding and flapping in the living room. He must have snuck in this room, like one of those secret passageways in Clue—where you can go straight from the Conservatory to the Lounge even though they’re on opposite ends of the game board. He had tricks up his feathered sleeves, and he was now head-banging against the window in his new room. When he fell to the floor. Again. I rushed past him to open the back door leading to our screened-in porch “Alright, bird. Come on out to the porch. I’ll get this door open for you too, or the front door’s still an option. Either one works for me.” 

I got the screen door open and finally remembered to breathe as he soared onto the porch. Brilliant. Until he crashed straight into one of the screens. I now know the origin of the word “birdbrain”. I closed off the porch, so he couldn’t get back in the house, and kept talking to him while shooing him time after time in the direction of the exit. After several crash and burns, he flew outside. I slammed and latched the door behind him.
 
Finally free of the problem of having a large bird flopping around my home, I pondered how he ever got so misplaced that he ended up here, that he thought he wanted to be in our house instead of out in the open where he belonged? How did he get so confused, distracted that he couldn’t distinguish glass or screens from air, from wide-open spaces? I considered how the more exhausted and anxious he got, the more he seemed to spin out of control.
 
But I do it too. Do you? Do you ever run into the same wall time and time again? Trying to do it all by yourself, ignoring the voice coaching you out to freedom

Instead of embracing the trees and sky where God has placed you, do you ever seek something you’re not suited for, somewhere unbecoming of the beautiful being God created you to be? Have you ever banged your head on the glass thinking it might be a way out, crashed into a screen when you’ve flown a little too high or too low?
 
Like that bird, we all get off track sometimes, misplaced, confused about where we want to be, where we should be, what is truly important. We find ourselves someplace we never imagined, and we can get trapped there. Appearances, brands, numbers on the scale, on test results, on the scoreboard, or in our checkbooks distract us. We get tired and stressed, which confuses us and we start making bad, frantic decisions. But how do we get back on track, back to our true selves, our true reflections?
 
It’s easy, if we’re willing to take a deep breath, get our bearings and listen. God is opening doors and windows giving us fresh opportunities and new chances, shooing us to the openings, to the ways out of bad situations and into wide-open spaces. He’s talking to us saying, “Look over here!” We just need to listen.
 
And when we pull ourselves out of our heaps and fly to the beautiful places He’s providing for us, we can stop feeling scared, lost, overwhelmed, or incapable, and spread our beautiful wings and soar as He designed us to do.

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. Galatians 5:1 

​Have you ever eaten an apple from Walmart? Sure all of the apples in the ready-to-go, easy-to-carry, plastic bag are the same shape and size. They’re even all the same color. Even if they’re multi-colored apples, it’s uncanny how they manage to package eight apples with the exact shade and portion of yellow marbled into the exact hue and percentage of red all in the same bag. But once you bite into one of those look-alike apples, you forget you’re eating an apple. Instead you get a mouthful resembling mealy cardboard.

Have you ever picked apples in an orchard? Off a real, live tree? Or at least purchased apples from an apple farmer, at a roadside stand, or a farmer’s market? They’re all unique. One might have a ding. Another an uneven spot. You might find one with its stem and leaf still attached. Their surfaces aren’t as smooth or shiny (translate waxy) as the ones at Walmart. Even apples from the same tree are different sizes with distinctive curves. Ever bitten into one and experienced the layering of sweet and tart, crisp and juicy, like crunching morsels of cider? These apples are like ambrosia. It’s almost blasphemy to use the same word to label this fruit as the kind they’re calling apples at Walmart.
 
God created us to be orchard apples.
Not Walmart apples.
Got that?
 
He designed each and every one of us in His image. He knows exactly how much water we need, what kind of fertilizer we require, how to keep the pests away. He appreciates us when we are seeds, seedlings, beautiful pink blossoms in the spring, and as we grow into solid fruit. He doesn’t judge us along the way, try to grow us in a rush, pick us too early, or stuff us in a plastic bag and ship us before we’re ripe. See, God made us; therefore He loves who we are at every stage of our life, our dings, our rough spots, our natural surfaces. He doesn’t ask us to be anything we’re not, or try to cram us into a bag, force us to like someone else. No, through His love, God helps us become the best versions of ourselves. Much like those fresh from the orchard apples. Some of us are sweet, and some of us are tart, and some of us are a mix of both. We are red and green and gold and pink and all kinds of swirling combinations. 

​A Granny Smith does not want to be like a Golden Delicious, she’s too sassy for that. A Pink Lady has no aspiration to be a Honey Crisp, because she’s amazingly sweet and crisp and beautiful just like she is. Each apple just tries to be itself, because that’s who it was made to be. Us too. We need to relish in who we were made to be our Creator. Remember you are an orchard apple, not a Walmart one, so delight in the layers of your personality, your one-of-a-kind shape, size and flavor.
 
I love to bake. One of my family’s favorites this time of year is Apple Crisp. The secret to this recipe is to use a variety of apples. The different degrees of sweet and tart, crisp and soft all meld together when they bake into something unbelievably scrumptious. We deal with gluten and nut allergies, but this dessert is safe for all of us to savor. It is warm and sweet and spicy. Top it with some vanilla ice cream that melts over the crunchy topping, and you’re pretty close to this side of heaven. You don’t need any skills to make it, just a great variety of farmer’s market apples and a peeler.

Apple Crisp
 Ingredients:
7 medium-sized apples peeled and sliced thinly. A variety is best, some gold, some green, and some red. Mix it up.
1 cup dark brown sugar
½ cup melted butter
1 ½ cups gluten free rolled oats (you can use regular, but don’t use steel cut, they don’t work as well)
½ cup gluten free flour (I use a ready-made blend, but you can make your own blend, or use GF oat flour or use regular flour. They all work the same.)
½ tsp. Cinnamon
Dash Nutmeg
Dash Ginger
Vanilla Ice Cream or if you’re feeling festive, whipped cream
 
Preheat oven to 375 degrees

• Place peeled and sliced apples in a 9x12 pan.
• In separate bowl mix topping, which is all the other ingredients except for the ice cream or whipped cream.
• Spoon topping evenly over apples in pan.
• Bake for 35 minutes until your house smells absolutely amazing and everything is bubbly and golden.
• Cool for ten minutes or so, so you don’t burn your tongue or the roof of your mouth. Scoop into bowls. Pile on the ice cream or whipped cream and yum!

What's your favorite way to serve apples in the fall?