One More Prodigal Son

At the ripe old age of twenty-one (21), having just come out of the Marines and been discharged, he found himself lost, not just from the military, but from all of life as he had known it. He began to run, hard and fast from all that his Mother, his Father and his church had taught him. Surely there must be another way to live, he thought. And he found it - the road to hell itself, beckoning with alure and appeal at first, he reveled in "just doing it." One year went by, then two years and it grew easier and easier to forget Mom's calls and Dad's angry encounters. Life began to dim as he began to lose what he thought he had gained, first his job, then his reputation as the alcohol led to fighting, unemployment led to drugs and drugs led to home as a cardboard box, begging for his next meal. All along, Moma prayed, and prayed some more, anguished by her son's abandonment of her love and the love of a God that her boy knew so well. BUT GOD, had not forgotten him. Pony-tail dipped in pink and purple, clothes full of stench and holes, face drawn from hunger and a mouth foul as his physical odor, he called Mom to come rescue him. Little by little he stepped back into LIFE, bathed himself first outside and then in - basking in God's forgiveness of a life turned sour, but not forsaken. God and Mama were there waiting, Dad had passed on to eternity, and the prodigal son had come home. Full of regrets not only for what he had done to himself, to his Moma and to his Dad who would never known that the son had come home, the hardest feat yet he faced was forgiveness. Forgiving himself.

Five Years of Running

Young, tall and lean, he folded himself into the aisle airplane seat beside me. Shy, but friendly he quickly introduced himself. Full of promise and plans, he began to tell me about his upcoming wedding plans and visions of buying their first fixer-upper home. The flight was not long, but we quickly developed a kinship of conversation, he eager to tell me of his future and some of his past. His voice grew quiet as I told him of my impending heartache of divorce. Equally willing to share his pain and imperfections, he proceeded to tell me of his Mennonite-like upbringing. Straying from the standards of his family, he led a lifestyle full of alcohol abuse, winding up on his back in a hospital room, looking up at the ceiling and God. "I ran for five years," he said. Nodding, I listened on. My father had been praying that the Lord would stop me. My father was afraid he had prayed a little too hard and was fearful the Lord would not stop at just motorcycle injuries. But He did, and this young boy recovered, with new knowledge of his weaknesses and new determination not to repeat the pattern that led to his almost-fatal DUI on a bike. With a new light in his eye, and his love's name on his lips, he walked quickly off the plane and onto his new life with his fiancee's voice on the other end of his cell phone, eager to continue his ongoing life conversation with her. "Oh," I thought, "to have a future again that one would actually look forward to, instead of behind.". Somewhere I heard a whisper in my soul, a stirring ever so gently, the words of the Bible swelling up in my soul, the Lord will restore what the locusts have eaten. I exited the plane with new hope and a lighter step.