The Cracked Acorn: Home

A minister was returning from a successful tent meeting in the mid-west. He was looking forward to a long, quiet and uneventful train ride home to Jacksonville, Florida. He took a seat beside a young man who was staring out the window. This went on hour after hour and mile after mile. When the minister did finally engage him in small talk, this is what he heard.

“Mr. ‘Minister’, I want to admit that I have not been the ideal son. I left home many years ago with all I thought I would ever need. Yes, I had all the answers, no one dared to tell me a thing. I never listened to anyone and that included my parents. It has been a long time and I have become very successful but I am lonely. I wrote my mother and father that I would be on this train. Would they somehow leave a sign in the backyard that I would be welcome to visit them.”

Well, you know what happened. The whole small town had turned out and mother and father were camped in the back of the house as close as could be to the tracks. The favorite apple tree near the house was decorated in all kinds of ribbons. You would have to be blind to miss the message,”Come on home!!”

While I was in grade school, a hail storm wiped out the crops for that year. This caused my parents to seek public jobs; father became a knitter and mother took a job as a hosiery inspector. They were on the 2nd shift. For almost two years I was coming home from school to an empty house. I did not like it at all! I could have stayed at my grandmother’s home but that would have meant getting up earlier in the morning and walking an extra 1/2 mile to meet the school bus (total of one and a half miles). I soon became adept at staying by myself till my parents arrived near midnight. I never did get used to the idea that coming through the woods and around the curve of the road that I would not see the car or see someone out doing chores.

It seemed not too long ago that I had some days to use or lose. My lovely wife suggested that I drive to Kentucky and visit my parents. She would pack a suitcase and that I should surprise them. My parents always expected us to visit in October this was April. Leaving after 4 o’clock in the morning I could usually arrive Kentucky time at 4 p.m. (losing an hour due to daylight savings time). From the small town of Auburn to the farm is about 5 miles. When I turned off the main road , and came through the woods and around the curve, that old familiar feeling came back “Would I see the car and would someone be out working!!” Sure enough my dad was working on equipment at the farm shed, he was happy to see me. Together we walked across the farm lot to the house to surprise mother in the kitchen. I will never forget her smile. They are gone now but the memory of that day eases the loss.

(A retold story loved for its many versions of Luke 15:11-32)