Nothing Is Ever Lost

About the Book

A little child, Rachel, worries about loss while living with her family in a white and blue house. She imagines the worst each time a person or toy precious to her is not in sight. Her mama teaches her through a code phrase, “Nothing is ever lost,” that people and toys are always within reach and that a family’s hearts are as one.

When Rachel dies, her family is sad and scared. It is her turn to remind them that she is still with them. God allows her to reach out to them by bringing a song to her brother’s heart and a hug to her mama. This brings new hope to the family, and Rachel shouts from heaven that “nothing is ever lost.”

In the end, Rachel pets her cat, Mittens, who is with her now, and even from heaven plays a familiar game with her mama that stretches across time and loss. She and her family realize that they will always be together, even though they can’t see one another in the worldly sense, and that God is good. He cares when we are afraid and cannot find our hearts.

About the Author

Barbara Lavalley’s first love has always been her duties as a mother, and she is now a proud grandmother to Maddie and Gavin. She has worked part time as a training consultant with High School Transition Programs for challenged students and as a preschool teacher for the past fourteen years. She returned to school at age fifty-three and received an associate’s degree in American Sign Language in May 2014. She is also the author of the story “Through Christ Who Strengthens Me,” which appeared in God Alone: Stories of the Power of Faith. Her goal is to pass on hope to other families, grieving or not, through something she and her children love to do together—read.