Deacon Paul Nghia Pham

THE LOST GLOVE

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” — Luke 19:10

It happened on a rainy February afternoon. I was walking to my car after visiting a parishioner when I saw something small lying near the curb — a child’s glove. Bright red, soaked with rain, half-flattened by passing cars. It looked so out of place in the gray puddled street that I stopped.

It was tiny — barely big enough to fit a toddler’s hand. The kind with little rubber grips shaped like stars. I picked it up and turned it over gently. Someone’s little one must have dropped it while being rushed indoors out of the cold.

I looked around the street — empty. No stroller. No family. No one searching.

Just the lost glove… and me.

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Instead, I placed it on top of a nearby mailbox, hoping that whoever lost it might see it easier there. But as I walked back to my car, that glove stayed on my mind.

A single glove is such a lonely thing — useless without its pair, incomplete without what it was meant to hold.

When I got home, I shared the story with my wife. She said quietly, “It’s strange how something so small can feel so sad when it’s alone.”

Her words lingered.

The next day, I returned to the same street. The glove was still there, perched on the mailbox, wet and wrinkled from the night’s rain. For some reason, I felt a tug in my chest — not just for the glove, but for all the “lost things” in life: hopes mislaid, relationships forgotten, prayers we stopped saying, versions of ourselves we misplaced somewhere along the road.

I lifted the glove again. A thought came gently, like a whisper: If I’m this concerned about a glove, how much more must God care when we feel lost?

Later that week, I visited a man in the hospital. He had drifted away from the church for decades. As I prayed with him, he said with a trembling voice, “Deacon, I’m not sure how to come back. I don’t even know where to begin.”

Something in me remembered the red glove on the mailbox.

“You don’t have to find your way back,” I said softly. “God comes looking for you. He’s the one who finds what’s lost.”

He closed his eyes, and tears slid down his cheeks — quiet, unforced tears of someone realizing they’re not forgotten.

On the drive home, I passed that same corner again. This time, the glove was gone. Maybe the parents found it. Or maybe someone else picked it up. Either way, it wasn’t sitting alone anymore.

For the first time that week, I smiled at the empty mailbox.

That evening, as I sat with a warm cup of tea, I thought about the way God seeks us — gently, persistently, lovingly. We get lost in ways far more serious than a child dropping a glove. We get lost in worry, in sin, in grief, in fear. We misplace our peace. We lose sight of hope. We forget who we are.

But God doesn’t wait for us to crawl back. He goes out into the cold, into the dark, into the mess of our lives — and He finds us.

Sometimes He finds us in a hospital bed.
Sometimes in the silence of a sleepless night.
Sometimes in a tear we didn’t expect.
And sometimes… He finds us through a little red glove on a rainy curb.

A few days later, my granddaughter visited. As she put on her coat, she realized she was missing one glove.

She gasped dramatically. “Grandpa, we have an emergency!”

I knelt beside her. “Where did you lose it, sweetheart?”

She shrugged. “Somewhere.”

I smiled. “Then we’ll look for it together.”

We checked under tables, behind chairs, in the car — and finally found it near the shoe rack. When she slipped it on, she grinned, “Now I’m complete!”

I laughed, but my heart caught again — because it was true.
One small thing missing makes a big difference.

And maybe that’s why Jesus told us He came to seek the lost — not to scold them, not to shame them, but to make them whole again.

That night, I thought again of the glove on the mailbox. Maybe it wasn’t just a child’s glove. Maybe it was a reminder that God notices what we drop. Nothing that belongs to Him stays lost forever.

Not hope.
Not joy.
Not faith.
Not us.

We may wander.
We may forget.
We may fall.
But the Shepherd never stops searching.

And when He finds us — wet, worn, forgotten by the world — He lifts us gently and says, “I know where you belong.”

We may lose ourselves along the way, but God never loses what He loves — He always comes looking.