This morning’s post is from 2013. Still touches my heart!

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Yesterday my two and a half year old and I were sitting on the couch, watching that talking vegetable show and we got to the end of the one about the scarecrow and the tin man and the cowardly lion, which is really the story of the Prodigal Son (lost on her… she just loves to see her favourite veggies dressed up like her favourite literary characters)… and we get to this end part where the little asparagus is coming home after running away to the amusement park.

And he’s practicing his speech…

“Mr. O’Gill… Mr. Farmer O’Gill, I would like to work for you…”

And oh, I can feel them tears threatening.

And that Dad Asparagus won’t hear a word of it.  He just picks up that little Asparagus and whirls him around in his arms, and says all those things that we know so well – “you were lost, and now you’re found.  You were dead to me, and now you’re here”… and for the first time in my life, I am that Dad Asparagus.  And I picture my precious children breaking my ever-living heart in a million ways, again and again, and I picture myself waiting and agonizing and praying for them to return to me.  And then they do.

And I finally understand.

So that Dad Asparagus and that little Asparagus are jumping on that computer animated trampoline, and with every bounce, another tear slips down my cheek.

And Andrew Peterson sings:

“You can always come home
You can always come home
You can always come home to me”.

I wipe my tears before she has the chance to ask, “You cryin’ Mom?”.

And I know that’s my voice singing along.  “You can always come home to me, kids”.  Always and forever.

And I thank the Father that I can always come home.  Because lately, I’ve been practicing that “come home” speech – that one that says “I can work off my debt, sir, if you just give me a chance…”

And I am met with that unexpected, undeserved, unabashed love and acceptance – the very thing my heart craves, in the very place I least expected it.

And I crumple into His arms – stunned, relieved, amazed.

His patience – stunning.

His forgiveness – life-giving.

His love – amazing.

(I also think, “what a God’s-Glory-moment – using a cartoon to bring healing to a tired mama’s heart.”)