I Am Not Forgotten...Anywhere!

No-one likes being forgotten. Your birthday missed or your invitation to a party overlooked... regardless of the lapse, being forgotten kicks you that touch harder than other knocks in life. Maybe it stings that little bit more because being forgotten makes one feel a bit insignificant and unworthy. Like you're unimportant and so obviously invisible enough to be disregarded.

Last Sunday night at church our young adults group, otherwise known as CONNECT convened for our fortnightly gathering. As is often our want, we decided as a group to eat out and the most convenient venue of choice was that well known pizza franchise La Porchetta. And so off we went with this white man salivating at the prospect of a good La Porchetta Original pizza. And we get to the restaurant and the pre-meal rituals of menu examination and gathering condiments such as chilli and tabasco sauce were carried out without much fuss. And then it happened...a dark realisation hit us hard...where was Anh? One of our young adults was unaccounted for. I asked the drivers, who did he travel with? None could confirm that he'd travelled with anyone. And the truth dawned with a heaviness in this white man's ample winter gut - he'd been left back at church. Probably in the toilet for that was the only explanation possible. And so I visualised this poor fellow sitting there in his cubicle minding his own business when the lights would have suddenly switched off, plunging him into pitch blackness. And after finishing his task, he would have stumbled out into our foyer only to be greeted by dark silence and definitely no pizza. He didn't have a car and he was locked in the church grounds as the front gate had been locked. This young man had been forgotten!

One of the group travelled back to church and found the young man walking home on the dark, bad streets of Footscray. Eventually he made it to La Porchetta and after profuse apologies and, this white man will admit some laughter, his pizza was paid for by us all. And my suspicion was confirmed - he was going about his business when all of a sudden his quiet moment of solitude literally turned very dark! Fortunately he had enough moonlight through a window in there to conclude his oblutions! Forgotten in the toilet...does it get any worse than that?

Besides the practical lesson this white man learnt the other night to always check the church toilets before locking up I was also reminded of a deeper truth. Regardless of where we find ourselves in life we are never forgotten by our God. Even when we're knee-deep in life's effluent and lost in the struggles that life brings, our God never forsakes or forgets us. We are never far from His mind and never disregarded as insignificant or worthless. A simple truth yes, and the reminder given in less than ideal circumstances, but isn't that God's way? So there it is - I am not forgotten, He know's my name! And there are no toilet doors in this entire universe that can obscure us from God's love!