Prodigal Path

Across the open field, my father saw me. How he recognized me from so far away, I don’t know. When I left home, I was so full of myself. I walked out on him with nothing but the inheritance I asked him for. I wanted out. I couldn’t see living the same life he did. Things were too simple. The same view of the fields every morning. The same seasons. The same days replaying over and over. Rising in the cold before dawn, lumbering out through the gate to feed the animals, and the constant work barely holding our farm together. In a few months, I’d gone through all the money, and when it disappeared so did all the company it bought. One morning I realized that my life felt like I was crossing through a nightmare, as if I was a castaway on a cold stormy sea. I walked for days and stumbled my way the last few hours to the only place I could go — home, to beg my father for my life back. My clothes tattered, my hair matted and my skin dark with dirt from feeding another man’s pigs. When I stepped into the clear, I could see our home on the hill and the outline of my father working. His eyes locked onto me like a watchman on the wall. He dropped what he was doing and ran, kicking up rocks from the gravel road, through the gate and into the pasture, shouting for joy. My brother and the field hands stopped to see what the commotion was about, searching for me in the clearing. I was so tired, I just stood and watched, my heart swelling with love that overwhelmed my nerves. The closer my father came, the clearer I could see him a broad smile on his face. He charged up the hill and threw his arms around me. “My son, my son … you’re home!” he said. And I was, before he ever embraced me.