Waiting For the Prodigal Son

This is my first blog that gets personal. It may also be the last—it's much easier to be impersonal.

This story goes back 23 years. Bam! Bam! Bam! The sound from our front door jolted me upright in bed. I tried to make out the digital clock across the room. It seemed to show something after 1 a.m. Bam! Bam! Bam! The pounding persisted.

Vicky was up now. “I don’t think Eric is home yet,” she said.

A chill passed through my body and the drowsiness was gone. As I started for the door I thought, Good news never comes at this time of day.

Eric’s friend, Chuck, was in the house as soon as I opened the door. “You have to get dressed right away,” he blurted. “Eric went down on his bike and he’s hurt.”

The accident happened a few blocks from our house, and we were there in less than ten minutes. The area was unnaturally lit by the flashing lights of two police cars, an ambulance, and a paramedic unit. About a dozen onlookers stood around the edge of the light. As we walked hesitantly toward the lights, I held on to Vicky’s arm. I wanted to comfort her, but I wasn’t sure I had the strength to sustain myself.

The firs thing I saw was Eric’s red, white, and blue motorcycle in a crumpled heap next to the curb. A pool of oil was slowly spreading from the crankcase, and the smell of gasoline was strong. The paramedics were still working on Eric. They had cut away his clothes, attached a neck brace, and were preparing to put him on a board so he could be moved to the ambulance. He was covered with oil, but there wasn’t much blood. I hoped that was a good sign. He showed no recognition when I knelt and tried to speak to him. He was moaning in a loud, low-pitched voice that I had never heard before.

In the car, on our way to the hospital, Vicky asked, “Do you suppose this is the answer to our prayers about Eric?” It was a question that had been on my mind as well. We had prayed for about six months that God would send someone or something into his life to change him. Eric was 16, and he had been in a growing state of rebellion for almost a year. He had been released from an adolescent drug treatment program just four days before the accident. By the time he got out, we knew that the program wasn’t the answer.

The ensuing hours and days and months were spent praying and spending as much time as possible with Eric as he began to recover through treatment and therapy. His only injury was a Traumatic Brain Injury that left him with limited use of his right arm and leg. We were encouraged by Eric’s desire to recover, his openness in communicating with us, and the apparent lack of cognitive damage. But the question remained—would there be the changed heart in answer to our most fervent prayers.

Eric is now 39 yeas old and I’m sure you expect me to say that he is now leading a productive Christian life. Isn’t that the way these stories are supposed to end. That’s certainly what I expected, and it’s what I still expect even though Eric is still alcohol and drug dependant.

Not that we haven’t struggled over the past 23 years with the ups and downs that come from high expectations and our own projections on how God should work this all out. But God has now brought us to a place that there is nothing left for us to do but to trust in God’s sovereign grace and to rely on His covenant promises. We still pray for Eric every day, as do many of our friends and fellow Christians. The difference is that we now know that God’s answer to those prayers will far exceed anything that we could devise or project.

The story of the prodigal son has many aspects, and it contains messages for the father and the brother, as well as the prodigal son. As a father, I’m prepared to welcome my son with open arms just as our heavenly Father welcomes all His prodigal sons when we return to Him through faith in Christ.