Growing a Tender Heart for Prodigals and Those Who Love Them

It is surely a work of God.

I just read about a Little Caesar’s putting this sign on their door: “To the person going through our trash for their next meal: You’re a human being and worth more than a meal from a dumpster. Please come in during operating hours for a couple of slices of hot pizza and a cup of water at no charge. No questions asked.”

I wept.

This morning a Facebook memory from four years ago reminded me of a conversation with a homeless man named Davante. It was a sweet story—he prayed for me and I prayed for him.

Tears came.

Today I received a message from a friend who was anticipating reading my book, When You Love a Prodigal. The long-prayed-for son of a friend of hers had died from a heroin overdose. She was sure my book will help her hold on to hope. 

Again, tears.

It’s been a blubbery day for me.

I don’t think I was a kind and compassionate person in my much younger days. Maybe for dogs—I brought them home often. But when it came to people my favorite person was me, and my tears were mostly related to my own circumstances, desires and well-being. I was rather self-focused.

Looking back, I see steps of transformation the Lord has used. Becoming friends with Abby, the blind girl down the street at my grandmother’s home. In high school spending Saturday mornings playing with and reading to children in an inner city church.  Making Sunday rounds with my obstetrician father to visit new moms and their babies.

Slowly God opened my eyes and eventually my heart to hurts and needs around me.

But surely the most thorough transforming evolved during our many years of prodigal wilderness. As I experienced the pain, loss and fear our wayward one’s choices brought and as I met many others on the same journey, my attention fixed on the many who love a prodigal and on the prodigals themselves.

In the wayward people—mostly teens and young adults—I began to understand that some of their prodigalness was truly rebellion. They wanted their own way, freedom from constraint, to do whatever they wanted. I was sad for the self-inflicted misery in their lives.

But I experienced deep sorrow for those whose “rebellion” was really in response to circumstances life and people had inflicted on them: abandonment, abuse, mental illness, rejection, disability…. 

In reality, everyone involved here needed basically the same things. Yes, they require clear boundaries and appropriate, expressed consequences . But the overriding needs—of all prodigals and those who love them--include:

Love. Unconditional, consistent love—the kind of love Jesus exhibited.

Mercy. Forgiveness. We have all sinned, fallen short, made wrong choices, hurt people, and we all need mercy.

Grace. To be given, not what we deserve, but rather what we don’t deserve.

Because my book—lived and written in tears over 15 years—releases a week from today—September 17—these wanderers and those who love them are ever on my mind. And my morning inbox always has a word from one who loves a prodigal, in tears of desperation to be able to keep hoping for return and reconciliation.

So my own tears still come easily for the prodigals and those who love them.

I invite you, for yourself or a friend, if your tears come easily, if pain is pervasive, if fear prevails, if hope is elusive, to let God give you strength for each day, eyes and heart to see not only the destructive choices but also the need for compassion and tenderness.  May His love and grace and mercy pour over you and through you—for yourself and that one you love.

I believe my devotional book with its 90 days of grace for the wilderness can change those tears of despair into hope.

You can pre-order this week at Amazon or any other bookseller. Or go to you local store after September 17 to buy it. 

C02019 Judy Douglass