Meet ‘Cowie’

Cowie was my daughter's favorite toy. It was a cute little stuffed cow. 

My daughter carried Cowie around everywhere she went. She would hug and kiss her, even sleep with her. My daughter loved that toy. We dared not leave our house without Cowie, this would bring tears. As a new mom, I tried to keep my eye on where that toy was 24/7... peace and sanity in a home with young kids is a must. All you parents out there understand the struggle.

When my daughter was four years old, she went to a park and somehow lost Cowie. My daughter was SO SAD. My mama's heart felt sad for her. It's just a stuffed animal but to her it was the world.  

"Lord, Cowie is her favorite toy. It’s sad she doesn’t have it anymore. If I care about returning this toy to her, then I know You do too. You care about her heart even more than I do. You know exactly where Cowie is." 

Sometimes God speaks to us through dreams, sometimes He gives us pictures or images, a simple spoken word, He might put a song on our hearts, etc. When I was talking to Him about returning Cowie I saw an image in my mind of another kid finding it, so I prayed this prayer…

"Even if Cowie got picked up by another kid You can still bring her back to us. Please have that kid leave Cowie somewhere, and let us find her. Will You please bring Cowie back to us?"  

Sometimes God answers our prayers with a "yes", sometimes it's a "no", sometimes it's "not right now" and sometimes we have no idea the answer to our prayers. In this situation I didn't know what He would do but I knew God cared about my daughter's heart.

One month later… I was with my daughter & one of my helpers, we were at a coffee shop in a neighboring city, as we were sitting on the couch I noticed out of the corner of my eye a familiar stuffed cow sitting on a shelf. It was our Cowie. I jumped up, ran over to it, and screeched with joy. I picked her up and brought her to my daughter. Her eyes gleaming, "it's Cowie, God brought back Cowie to us!" My daughter was THRILLED.

I almost couldn't believe it. I approached the gentleman at the counter and told him it was my daughter's stuffed cow. I asked him to tell me the story of how it ended up at the coffee shop. He said a child left it behind a couple weeks prior and a staff member put it up there so it could be found… similar to the picture the Lord had given me a month prior, in prayer.

I shared with him, and two other employees, about asking God to return Cowie to us. I shared how God hears our prayers and cares for the ‘little’ things we care about. They were excited for us. My daughter got to hear and experience first-hand God’s tangible goodness and care for her heart, and as a mom this means the world to me. God cared so much about her heart and the sadness she had felt from losing Cowie, and orchestrated the return of Cowie back to her.

So let me ask you, what have you lost?

This lost cow could represent; crumbled friendships, marriages that have dissolved, broken families, your health, a business, sexual innocence, lost or stolen finances, lost dreams, time, hope.

Some losses may not be found or restored in the ways we would hope for and want, like our sexual purity/virginity. There are things in my past I would love to be erased and gone forever into the abyss of nothingness regarding my sexual past. However, God can even restore things about our sexual past in mind blowing ways. Many have been healed of traumatic memories, healing of STD's, even HIV. 

There are other areas He restores... Joel 2:25 encourages us that time and provision can be restored.

Jeremiah 30:17 speaks of health being restored. In Job 42:10 God restores lost finances. 1 Peter 5:10 encourages us that our physical, mental, and emotional strength can be restored. 

Psalm 51:12 tells us JOY can be restored. 

There are many testimonies of friendships and marriages being restored.

We're all on different journeys, our losses are restored differently, the beautiful thing is God wants to speak to us about these lost treasures. Whatever it is that you have lost, God cares deeply for these things and He grieves with you in your loss.

How does God want to bring restoration to you?

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