LightGrams
January 8, 2026
Volume 30, Number 2
Airports are busy places with travelers dashing to make connections and staff processing passengers and luggage on tight timelines. It was a surprise, therefore, when the Norfolk (VA) International Airport posted on their social media site an appeal for help in finding someone. A teddy bear had been discovered in the airport, and they hope to reunite it with its owner.
The bear is obviously one that was constructed at Build-A-Bear Workshop. These businesses are found in 525 locations throughout the world. There’s one in the city where I live, though I’ll have to admit I’ve never visited it. At these workshops children can put together a teddy bear in just the way they want, including colors, scents, sounds, outfits, etc. It’s easy to see why children would become attached to the bears they had personally helped build.
The appeal was posted on December 30; as of today, no one has yet stepped forward to claim it. It’s touching to see how many responses applaud the attempt to reunite the bear with its (likely) young owner. One reader commented, “Shared in some local groups. Hope he finds his way home.”
Losing a teddy bear is a serious matter for its young owner, but how much more consequential is losing one’s way in life? Jesus spoke a parable with a similar scenario in Luke 15:4: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it?” He went on to say that when the sheep was found there was great rejoicing.
What was Jesus’ point? The parable was given after Jesus was criticized for allowing people of low reputation to surround Him: “This Man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). To Jesus, these sinners were loved, people whom He had “built”. He came to earth “to seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10).
2 Peter 3:9 comments further on this idea: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” The mention of “longsuffering” means that God seeks long and hard in His attempts to turn us back to the way of life. People easily give up on other people, but God doesn’t.
Let us never forget that God “has made from one blood every nation” and desires “that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26,27). The bear at the Norfolk airport is powerless to find its way back to the one who built it. We, however, have the ability to respond to the efforts launched long ago to bring us back to our Maker and Owner. How wise we are to welcome His grace into our lives!
Come to the light God offers! Study His word, the Bible. Worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss these ideas further.
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Copyright, 2026, Timothy D. Hall. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New King James Version (Copyright, 1990, Thomas Nelson, Inc.).
“LightGrams” is produced by the Central Church of Christ, 2722 Oakland Avenue, Johnson City, Tennessee, 37601, and is written by Tim Hall, minister. It is sent free of charge every Thursday to all who request it. To subscribe or to receive more information, write to “Tim@GraceMine.org” (our E-mail address), to the U.S. mail address above, or call (423) 282-1571.
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