There is a picture that hangs in my parent’s living room. It is a picture of the prodigal son’s return, one of my dad’s favorite sermons. I know the story well. I know that the father of the prodigal son was thrilled, joyful, even relieved that his son had returned home. But it wasn’t until last weekend that I finally understood the reckless love of a hopeful father and the picture of God’s love shown to us in that story.
I called my mother-in-law to wish her a happy birthday. She answered shortly, “Is it already on the scanner?”
“What?” I knew she was referring to my husband’s fireman radio, but I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I’m at the police station. Your niece wasn’t at school this afternoon. She and her boyfriend are missing. Becky, I think they’re gone.”
Our call was cut short. She had to answer questions, and my head was left spinning.
This was an all too familiar feeling. I received a similar call last summer when my niece made a few poor choices and was discovered to have left out of her bedroom window.
I always judged those families. The ones with their pictures on the news. The ones pleading for their children to return home safely. How could they not know their children were troubled? How could they let their children get to the point of running away?
I had a little more grace for them as I printed out a photo to be used at the police station.
She looked so much older in the photo on the screen. So different from the freckled face six-year-old I met when I married her uncle.
My mind ran like my feet wished they could. There must be something we can do? “Doing” seemed like it would make us feel better. As if having a way to contribute would make the helpless feeling go away. But where would we start? With no clues and no warning, the reality of a missing child overwhelmed all of us.
“Call the news stations,” I thought. “The more people looking for them the better.”
And then, the news release came,
BREAKING NEWS: police are on the lookout for two Fairview teenagers who they believe may be trying to harm themselves.
Wait! What did they know that we didn’t? Fear had escalated from the terrors of a 14-year-old girl alone with her 17-year-old boyfriend in the city to apparent threats against their own lives.
But God.
Prayers were said all over the state. Pictures were shared in every corner. Strangers begging God to let the two children be found safely and stressing the urgency on social media to pass along their photos.
And I thought about him. The picture of the man with tears streaming down his face. The father who must have gone out looking for his son everyday just knowing that that day was the day he would see him coming. I thought about the reports he must have received from people who had seen his son. They must have been painful, but anything to know that his son was okay and to know that he was still alive.
As the aunt, there wasn’t much I could do that her parents and grandparents weren’t already doing, but pray… I could pray with every ounce of me.
“Lord, I thank you that you love her. You see her. Send angels to cover her. Lord, bring her home safely. Lead the authorities to find her quickly. I ask that you would protect her life. Send your Spirit to cover her with your love and reveal her location. You know her. You see her. We trust You.”
I think the father must have prayed something similar. I wonder if he begged God daily, hourly, if it ever left the front of his mind – his son in a far off country, unreachable.
But all he could do was wait. All the father could do was trust that one day it would finally be the day that he was able to hold his son. One day his son would come walking up the driveway and he would hug him, forgive him and throw a party in honor of his return.
I waited. We all waited. We waited as her parents drove around like maniacs chasing leads and desperate to find her. We waited as the police tracked cell phones and coordinated among cities far apart. We waited as the prayer circles gathered and declared a safe return for both of them. We waited as God timed everything just perfectly so that the police and her parents crossed paths with the allegedly stolen white van at the exact same moment.
My phone rang. “We’ve got them.”
I couldn’t contain it. I wept. I didn’t realize how scared I was. How terrified we all had been. There hadn’t been time for it.
But as I sobbed into the phone, I understood God’s desperate love for me in a whole new way.
At that moment, we didn’t care about the list of terrible choices that caused these two to run. We didn’t care about the offenses or the hurtful things that had been said to justify their behavior. We didn’t care how much pain they had caused us. At that moment, the relief of knowing that they were safe, the joy of their return and the peace that they were no longer in danger surmounted all of it.
I could hear my Heavenly Father whisper, “That’s exactly how I love you. When you came to me, when I knew that you had been rescued from death, the offenses didn’t matter. The choices and the things that you had done which led you away from me didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I had you. You were touchable. You were reachable, and all of heaven celebrated your return.”
This is more than the story of a girl who was returned home safely to her family. It is the hope of humanity. It is all of our stories. It is the story of a lost sinner who was returned to the arms of a loving King. The truth of a Father that runs to meet His children, who forgives their offense and who says, “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
It is the desperation we should feel for each lost soul. It is the passion that should ignite us to share the gospel. There are more out there who need to hear. Who need to know the Father and return to His love. What lengths are we willing to go to bring them home?
Hope. Hope believes the impossible. It stands on faith. It is the steady forward pace into the den of fear and out the other side.
When all seems lost, let hope rise.
