You're My Son!

Most nights I wake up at 2 or 3 o’clock and can’t get back to sleep for two hours, sometimes more.  This morning, however, I awoke at the glorious hour of 5:30, having slept all the way through the night.  I was grateful, yet still wanted to sleep more, being a Saturday, when I heard loud shouting outside my bedroom window.  At first it sounded like a man and woman having an argument, and it was getting closer.  I jumped irritably out of bed and listened at the open window, where soon moving figures came into view of our street lights. I was shocked to see a young man and a small boy, no older than nine or ten.  I clearly heard the phrases, “You’re my son!” and “I’m exhausted” and “Wrong path” repeated several times as the apparent father and son made their way down the street toward whatever lay at home.  I had to imagine that this boy had been roaming the streets all night while his worried father, perhaps fearing his son is involved in gangs or crime--or the victim of them—stayed up all night searching for him.  I prayed for them both, wishing I had the gumption to run outside and offer them the powerful, loving arms of  a Savior who can change lives from wrong paths.  This father, in his rage, was clearly terrified for his beloved boy. My heart breaks for these people I don’t know, yet I am so glad this boy has a father, however young and imperfect himself with his f-bombs in a sleeping neighborhood at ultra-loud volume at 5:30am, who loves him enough to search him out and bring him back home safely. The indignant words, “You’re my son!,” still haunt me, reminding me of the power of a loving father who would do anything to keep a child from harm, whether from without or from within due to sin.  Thanks to our Father, for providing us Jesus to save us from our waywardness, for seeking us out when we, too, have strayed.

“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Heb. 13:5