Her anger knew no bounds. She abandoned her intelligence and her gifts of art and beauty. She put up barriers against our love. She refused to sing the songs of faith, to offer prayers. So, I prayed. I prayed again, making the prayers action, desperately and hopefully trying to reach our prodigal with thought, word, and deed.
I prayed with the precious longing for this child of Advent, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come” (Revelation 20:20). Then something happened. She came home. A summer ago, I asked what brought about the change. “Well, Mom,” she said. “It was your love—and, I suppose, God.”
I suppose God.
From “Coming Home,” by Karen Bates-Olsen, from the December 2010 Lutheran Woman Today, now Gather magazine.