The Empty Chair at Table Six

Maria Gutierrez counted heads on the bus three times before it pulled away from Riverside Park. Nineteen. She counted again. Nineteen. Her stomach dropped. There should have been twenty.

The other chaperones told her not to worry. "Probably already on the other bus," one said. But Maria was already stepping off, scanning the pavilion, the swings, the tree line beyond the creek. She knew every face in her kindergarten class the way a mother knows her own children, and the face missing was Elijah Turner — quiet, glasses too big for his head, always drawing rockets in the margins of his worksheets.

She found him eleven minutes later, sitting beneath a picnic table near the restrooms, knees pulled to his chest, tears streaking his dusty cheeks. He had wandered off to watch a caterpillar and lost track of his class. When he looked up and saw Mrs. Gutierrez running toward him, his whole body shook with relief.

She didn't scold him. She scooped him up, pressed his head against her shoulder, and whispered, "I wasn't leaving without you. Not ever."

Back on the bus, she called the school office just to say, "We have him. He's safe." And her voice broke with joy on that last word.

This is the heart of what Jesus tells the Pharisees in Luke 15. The Almighty does not glance at the ninety-nine and call it close enough. He goes after the one — not out of obligation, but out of a love so fierce it refuses to do the math. And when He finds you, there is no lecture. Only joy.