Her prodigal son

“Give me my due and let me go”.

The loud furious cry reached her from across the hall. Her husband and her son were at it again. In quick strides, she rushed out of the kitchen across the hall into the living room just as the young man stumped out of the room. He shrugged off the arm she stretched out to restrain him. The walls vibrated as he slammed the front door behind him.

She winced and said, “When would this stop O Lord, when?”

The two men were bent on inflicting the deepest wounds possible with their cutting words. This has been going on for so long. The angry father and the arrogant son share one trait in common: an ability to hurt each other deeply with words, and she is caught right in between them. She turned towards her husband, he was visibly shaken, his chest was heaving and she could hear his heavy breathing.

Pointing at the shut door, he said, “Did you hear your son shouting at me? Did you see the way your son disrespected me and stormed out?

Yes, he is indeed her son. If it were possible for a heart to be broken with grief, hers was. She flinched at the intensity of the animosity her husband expressed. How did their relationship get to this point that their son so embittered has lost all sense of proportion and reasoning, and the father so angry that he could exercise no control over his tongue?

His resentment had been simmering for a longtime. He complained and grumbled that his father treated him differently from his older brothers. He felt his brothers got more attention from their father but he had to beg for everything he got. He resented his brothers and his mother for not standing up to their father. He said many times he would honor his father only when he fulfills his responsibilities towards him.

That was five years ago. In those years, there had been no contact with their son; he literarily disowned the family when he did not get what he wanted. He could not be reached by phone or email. No one knew where he lives or work. She agonizes every day in prayers, entreating God to touch his heart, turn him around and bring him back home. Her heart aches with longing and desire to hear her son’s voice and to hold him in her arms again. Many times the pain of not knowing what has happened to him felt like a hot iron searing through her heart.

Yes, she is surrounded by her other children and many grandchildren, yet there remains a hollow in her heart which none of them could fill. Each child has his own space in the heart of a mother.

She propped herself up on the bed. Her eyes glimmered with tears; she decided she will shed no tears of sorrow today as she recalled the events that fateful day. Not today…. She will remember the joy that flooded her heart when the nurse placed his small long body wrapped in blue blanket into her waiting arms. She will remember how she blessed God for his safe delivery and declared him a gift from God. She will remember the blessings she pronounced on him that day. She made up her mind to offer to God a sacrifice of worship and praise at every remembrance of her son today. Her mouth will flow in ceaseless praise. Each time the thought of her son fills her heart, she will allow it to direct her attention to God in worship. She knows the eyes of the Lord must be upon him wherever he is right now. He must be unhidden from the sight of God and right under His watchful and direct attention. She is unyielding in her resolve to wait for God. She will wait patiently. She will wait with hope. She will wait in expectation for that day, appointed by God and her prodigal son will return home. To give up on that hope is to declare him dead. She will wait for the day that she will again hold him in her arms…broken, contrite and restored.

She lifted her head and her hands high up and began to sing a song of praise. That was when she took note of the song streaming softly from the CD player. “It is well with my soul” had been playing over and over again. Her husband must have put that on for her. She praised God that his heart is softening towards his son. Though they do not talk about their son, she knew that somewhere deep in his heart he wished the young man will come back home.

Whatever your prodigal son’s story may be, don’t give up hope, in due season he will be restored to you.

This post is dedicated to all those praying for a prodigal child to be restored.

“It is in the quiet crucible of our personal private sufferings
that our noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given,
and often given in compensation for what we’ve been through.”

- Wintley Phipps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYFjikyp7mQ&noredirect=1