Little Lost Lady

Little Lost Lady by Muriel Larson

Little Lost Lady

(A true story)

By Muriel Larson

When Eileen was a young girl, her mother forbade her to touch some things in her home. One was a beautifully painted little bamboo basket. It held two tiny figures of a Chinese man and woman dressed in colorful Oriental clothes.

Eileen loved this little basket and its figurines more than anything else. She often asked her mother to take it down from its high shelf and show it to her. But her mother would never let her touch it.

One day at school, Eileen learned that her class was going to study about China. She ran home excitedly.

“Mother,” she pleaded, “we’re going to study about China. Please let me take the basket with the Chinese dolls!”

“No, Eileen,” answered her mother. “That little basket and its figurines are too precious to me. I can’t let you take it.”

Eileen did not like her answer. Later she went back to her mother and pleaded with her again. “Oh, Mother, I would take such good care of it, truly I would!”

Finally her mother looked at her solemnly and said, “Well, if you’re sure you will be very careful, I’ll let you take it tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll be very careful,” Eileen promised joyfully.

The next day she carried the little basket and dolls to school. When her teacher announced that they would now study about China, Eileen pulled the basket out of her desk and took it to the teacher.

The teacher was pleased. She let Eileen show the basket and dolls to the class. Everyone strained to see. “Oh, aren’t they beautiful!” exclaimed one girl.

After class everyone gathered around to look at the dolls. Eileen was proud of them. When she left school that day, an older girl came up to her.

“What do you have there?” she demanded loudly.

“Just a little basket,” Eileen answered, holding it close.

The girl grabbed it roughly.

“Let me see!” She looked inside at the dolls. “Oh, that’s nothing!” she exclaimed scornfully.

Then to Eileen’s horror, she threw the little basket as far as she could into a nearby field of tall grass! Then she ran away laughing.

Eileen stood there stunned.

How could anyone be so cruel? Her mother’s basket and dolls! With a cry, she rushed into the field. Scrambling through the tall grass, she searched for her mother’s treasure.

Finally she found the basket. She kept looking. The sun was beginning to set. What if she couldn’t find those lost Chinese dolls?

Ah, there! She spied the little Chinese man. But as she kept looking for the Chinese woman, the sun went down. She could hardly see. The Chinese woman doll was lost!

Eileen went home sobbing. Though she looked and looked, she never found that doll.

When Eileen was 13, she learned that the Lord Jesus had died for her sins. She received Him as her Savior. She began reading God’s Word, for she wanted to learn more about Jesus.

As she sat on a branch in an apple tree reading, she came to Matthew 13:38, in which Jesus said, “The field is the world.”

Suddenly she remembered the field with the lost Chinese doll in it. Of course God’s field was not a field of grass. It was the whole world. And God’s field was not full of lost dolls. It was full of lost people.

“Why, I believe God wants me to take the Gospel of Jesus to lost Chinese wherever they are,” Eileen decided.

So when she grew up, Eileen did just that. She went out in search of lost Chinese people just as she had hunted for the lost dolls. And she helped many of them to come to Jesus.

© Muriel Larson

Muriel Larson was a freelance writer from Greenville, South Carolina.

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