An Instructive Moment About Our Father

Julie D., over at "The Happy Catholic" was the first one to make me understand what had happened to me during my conversion back to God. I couldn't really make sense of what had happened to me and I also couldn't understand why He would take me back after 25 years of turning my back on Him.

She did it by telling me the story of the Prodigal Son.

And then, it clicked - It all clicked. Everything in my world just tumbled into place.

So, as you can imagine, I'm a bit emotional about this one parable. :-)

Mercy and grace. Are there two better words in the entire human language? (Okay, I'll give you the word love but only because it is the source where mercy and grace originate from.)

That God would take me back after all the disrespect and sin and deceiving I did is truly a perfect example of mercy. That He did it and then said, "Here, I'm also going to point you to a great church community full of people who love you and then I'll bless your writing and surround you with wonderful Christian bloggers; oh and why don't you take a new puppy while you're at it..." Well, that's the perfect example of grace. It's the same as the story of the Prodigal Son except I am the Prodigal daughter (so I got a puppy instead of a robe!)

However, my favorite line of the prayer this time was:

"I confess there is inside me not only a prodigal son, but also a critical older brother."

It's a great reminder that, although we are God's chosen ones, we must never act like we are better or more deserving than anyone else because we aren't. We are still sinners. We are still critical. We are still judgmental. We are still way short of whoever God has planned for us to be. We must strive to keep our hearts open and remember that anyone outside the flock could be the next prodigal son about to return to our Father and our family. We are no better. We are no worse.

We all just are.

And we are because of God's love for mercy and grace...