Ah ha! There you are . . .

I've just spent the most gorgeous time in the garden picking the beautiful raspberries that are coming on now. The branches are loaded down this year, and we are so blessed with an abundant crop. And besides they are beautiful, taste good and are actually good for you. You can kind of just graze while you're picking and don't have to feel guilty about it.

I don't know if you can tell from the photo but I had to put my little ingenious arm protectors on to protect my arms from all the scratchy thorns since they are also present in abundance. Really they are just long socks with the toes cut off, you slip them on and you can dig around in the raspberry bushes hunting for raspberries all you want.

My bucket was getting filled with raspberries and still I dropped a gorgeous raspberry right down into the middle of the bushes. I searched and searched for it. Didn't want a single one of these precious bites to be lost. Finally I found it on the ground, right down in the middle with all the rocks and weeds. I had to practically crawl along the ground under the prickly sharp bushes, that were tangling in my hair (ew! I'm sure there's yucky bugs now crawling on me somewhere . . .) and snatched it up from the ground and into the bucket.

As I was crawling down amidst the thorns and stickers I asked myself whatever motivated me to make this much effort to retrieve one little raspberry. After all, I had a bucket full. Surely, one more wouldn't make that much difference.

I think it was more the effort we have put into the garden to produce the crop. All the weeding, and nurturing with fertilizer, tender waterings, daily monitoring for problems and such. It would be a shame to lose one perfectly good raspberry.

And then it came to me. This must be very much how our Heavenly Father feels as he seeks so diligently after his lost sheep. Each one so precious, so loved, and nurtured that he can't bear the thought that one should be lost and not return or make it into the bucket with the rest. That he would spare no expense to find that lost one and bring them back.

I'm grateful for such a Heavenly Father. One who is aware of and knows each little raspberry:)

Have a wonderful day!