With ears accustomed to the sound of death, the hiss of shame, the clanging of guilt…

Can you hear it?

With shoulders sagging under weights of your own creation, with a heart plagued by devils you fed and let flourish, with a body acquainted with rejection, jaw tense with the anticipation of rejection again…

Can you feel it?

With eyes that have magnified self, that have sought and settled on whatever they desired, that have seen destruction of self and sisters and shrugged…

Can you see it?

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).

Can you see it?

It’s the One you’ve despised running—running to you.

Can you feel it?

It’s a startling warm embrace when you’d braced yourself for a shove.

Can you hear it?

It’s a lavish celebration for one who never deserved all the fuss; it’s the home you’ve longed for, opened up to you. It sounds like no party, no proclamation, no home the world could ever offer. 

Can you hear it? It sounds like salvation.

—

I wrote this during the second service this morning as my husband preached on the prodigal son (Luke 15). I was so stunned by the goodness of this story I’ve heard a million times, and so touched by the way my Luke preached it that I had to hear it again. Through tears, I said to him, “You couldn’t have offered a better thing,” and I said to God a wordless thing, that more or less was “Thank you.”