I wrote here some months ago about “Ruth,” a member of the church who died. Ruth was a confirmation sponsor for a young woman, Marcie, who is now a young adult. Marcie was very upset at Ruth’s death and responded by writing Ruth a long letter, putting the letter inside a ceramic rabbit with one of those key-hiding compartments, and placing the rabbit next to Ruth’s stone in our church’s memorial garden.

The memorial garden is a place of simplicity and we don’t generally let “extra” stuff accumulate there. So Senior Pastor called Marcie and explained as much, gently, and suggested she could come and pick it up.

I guess a few weeks went by and Marcie wasn’t able to get to the church during office hours and so forth. In the meantime, the rabbit mistakenly got put into the church rummage sale.

The rummage sale is a huge community event. Most of the patrons are from the community. It is a ginormous amount of stuff, with every corner of our meeting space filled.

We didn’t discover the rabbit’s disappearance until last week, a couple of weeks after the sale. Senior Pastor asked me to send out a notice in an all-church e-mail, seeing if anyone had bought it. As much as my heart went out to Marcie, we only send six of those a year, and they are truly for huge events. But I agreed to include it in the weekly “Events” e-mail that goes to 240 e-mail subscribers in our church. Can’t hurt, I thought, though I felt that the chances of the rabbit having been purchased by a member of the church were slim to none.

I walked in on Sunday and saw the bunny sleeping on Senior Pastor’s table. Someone from the church had indeed bought it, seen the e-mail, and gladly returned it.

What was lost is now found!