I'm in my quiet time about 6:30AM this morning when my phone dings. I look at it and it is my oldest son asking me if I am in my quiet time. I respond 'yes' and he then asks, "Can I call?" Of course I said yes, not knowing what he would be calling for. Was something wrong? Had something happened? No, none of that. He invited hubby and I to breakfast this morning. I checked with hubby and we hurriedly got dressed and headed out the door to a nearby Denny's. Are they going to change the name to Benny's? I seem to have read that somewhere.... AND... I saw it on a few of the items in the menu. Anyway - we met for breakfast and enjoyed our time with him.
So here I am, thinking again of things I had wanted to write this morning. Actually, there were a couple things. It isn't exciting, but it was funny. We watched a movie last night and hubby fell asleep in the middle of it.... Sheeba was laying in her crate, door open. She often goes in there to sleep, chew her snacks, etc. Movie over, I get ready to go to bed, hubby wakes up, lights go out, we get in bed. Moments later I hear click, click, click across the tile floors. I raise up and start to ask hubby what the noise is when I realized what it was - and started laughing. He forgot to close the crate and Sheeba loves being near us. When he turned his light on, Sheeba was nearly at the foot of the bed. I reminded him we had talked of letting her stay out if she wanted... but he decided that last night was not then night and put her back in the crate and locked it. Maybe we will move her bed that she doesn't use and put in our bedroom and let her come in. We let Marley make her own choice. You may remember that at 8:30PM Marley would get up, walk to her crate and look at us, as if saying "it's bedtime". Sheeba does that too. Only with Marley, I don't know where she would end up during the night.... but I have a feeling Sheeba would end up on the couch, curled up in my corner. I think that because one day I caught her up on the couch in my corner. She had never been caught on it before. I'm afraid that during the night we may trip over her, but I feel we need to let her stay out and roam the house. She's housebroken, afterall, even though we do have to take her out. A doggie door her size would let the coyotes in. My only issue with her being loose is that she does tend to bark loudly or growl when someone walks past our house (or parks their car across the street), or a bird lands on the grass behind our back door. But we do need to start trying to see how it will work. She doesn't chew on things (that we know of) other than her toys.
Hubby and I talked on the way home about what I read in my Bible reading before we left. It was on the prodigal son. I like to read the study notes at the bottom of the page of the study Bible and today's was something I hadn't seen before. Not that I remember anyway. This is why I like to have different study Bibles, so that I can read different interpretations. In the prodigal son story you remember that the younger son took his inheritance and ran away and wasted it all; ended up being hired to feed the pigs before he 'came to his senses' and decided to be one of his father's servants as they were clothed and better fed than he was. So the prodigal son started his way home. In the story, it states that the father saw his son afar off, and ran to meet him.
Now in my mind, for some reason, I always thought the father was at the house, perhaps looked out the door and saw the son down the road a bit. But in the study guide, it said that the father would walk to a hill and climb it, so that he could look all over the country area to see if the son was coming. And when he finally saw his son coming from 'afar off', he climbed down the hill and ran to meet him. That touches my heart. It wasn't just looking out the 'door' or the 'window' to see if the son happened to be coming that direction..... the father looked for the son by climbing the hill and looking all over the landscape to see if the son was returning.
It's like our Heavenly Father, if you will think with me a moment. Our Heavenly Father is always looking for us to return home. There are many of us prodigals out there.... raised in church, but in our teen years (or later) decided we had more fun doing things that we were told were 'bad' or just hanging out with our friends and doing things with them... not that all things are bad.... but sometimes our choices to excess are. Anyway... our Heavenly Father is always looking for us to return home (yes, I know that I have said that already). He climbed Calvary's Hill for us... looking down the road for our return. And when we return to Him, we too, bow down and said we are not fit to be His son or daughter, but would He give us even the status of a servant, that we could be clothed and fed... and even better than what we ask for, He gives us status; He wraps us in His loving and forgiving arms, and says "Welcome Home".
"Welcome Home". For those who are lost, those are words we want to hear. Words that love us, that encircle us, that tell us we belong to Him. Words that accept us right where we are at. It doesn't matter what we have done; it doesn't matter where we have been. When we head back to our Heavenly Father, and ask His forgiveness, He gathers us in His arms and covers us with His grace. He has been standing on that hill, looking for us, and waiting..... and will wait until we return.
Are you waiting on that "Welcome Home" word? Don't hesitate, run to our Heavenly Father. He wants to give you those words. He's waiting, and looking afar off, waiting and looking, for you.
Welcome Home, son (or daughter). Welcome Home.
No comments:
Post a Comment