Everyone, I decided, has an interesting story if you dig deep enough and this senior combing the beach with a metal detector wasn't an exception to my self-made rule.
"Pardon me sir," I said politely, "How often do you use your metal detector; what is the most interesting, the most valuable and the most rewarding items you have found?"
Without hesitation he stated, "Combing the beach with a metal detector has been my hobby for years. The most interesting items are three toe tags, the most valuable is a 2.2 carat diamond ring, and the most rewarding was raising $3,000 for a charity in Thomasville, Georgia."
"What is a toe tag," I blurted out, "Inquiring minds want to know."
"A toe tag identifies someone that was cremated and their ashes were scattered in the Atlantic," he patiently explained. And as his story unfolded he added, "I was able to return the valuable diamond ring to the rightful Tennessee owner because she had placed an ad in a local newspaper three months earlier. I decided God's providence was at work because the likelihood of finding the ring and being able to return it was one in millions."
His excitement accelerated as he talked about his most rewarding experience.
"Due to my hobby 'I Once Was Lost But Now I'm Found,' a charity for troubled teens in Thomasville, Georgia is $3,000 richer. This charity gleans its name from the hymn Amazing Grace, he explained. "Amazing grace: how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see."
Then he asked this question and I leave it with you. "How think you? If a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go into the mountains, and seek that which is gone astray?" Matthew 18:12
Louise Duncan Day, a guest columnist for The Daily News, can be contacted by e-mail at daybyday@netcommander.com
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