Me: You looked all packed.

Prodigal: I am. I also I’m ready.

Me: Maybe this will help prepare your heart.

A missionary doctor spent forty years of his life ministering in the primitive villages of Africa. Finally, he decided to retire. He wired ahead that he would be returning by ship and gave the date and time of his arrival.

As he was crossing the Atlantic, he thought back over all the year he had spent helping to heal the people of Africa, both physically and spiritually. Then his thought raced ahead to the grand homecoming he knew awaited him in America because he had not been home in forty years.

As ship pulled into port, the old man’s heart swelled with pride as he saw the homecoming that had been prepared. A great crowd of people gathered, and there was a huge banner saying, “Welcome Home.” As the man stepped off the ship onto the dock and awaited a great ovation, his heart sank. Suddenly he realized the people had not gathered to pay tribute to him but to a movie star who had been aboard the same ship.

He waited in anguish with his heart braking. No one had come to welcome him home. As the crowd disbursed, the old man was left waiting alone. Tilting his face heavenward, he spoke these words, “Oh God, after giving all those years of my life to my fellow ma, was it too much to ask that one person–just one person–be here to welcome me home?”

In the quietness of his heart, he seemed to hear the voice of God whisper to him, “You’re not home yet. When you come home to ,me, you will be welcomed.”

Michael Broome Retold by Alice Gray

And everyone who has left houses or brother or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my safe will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 19:29

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodialpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org