Come Home

Max Lucado tells a story about a young girl from Brazil
who wanted to see the world:

Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor
a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove
she dreamed of a better life in the city.
One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart.
Knowing what life on the streets would be like
for her young, attractive daughter,
Maria hurriedly packed to go find her.
On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing,
Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain
and spent all she could on pictures of herself.
With her purse full of small black-and-white photos of herself,
she boarded the next bus to the city.

Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money.
She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up.
When pride meets hunger, a human will do things
that were before unthinkable.
Knowing this, Maria began her search
in bars, hotels, and nightclubs, any place with a bad reputation.
She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture
taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board
fastened to a corner phone booth.
And, on the back of each photo she wrote a note.

It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out
and Maria had to go home. The weary mother wept
as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.

It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs
Her young face was tired.
Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear.
Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare.
A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds
for her secure pallet.
Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away...

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face.
She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror
was a small picture of her mother.

Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened.
As she walked across the room and removed the small photo.
Written on the back was this compelling invitation:

“Whatever you have done, whatever you have become,
it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”

She did.

The same with us today with God our Father
No matter what you’ve done or who you’ve become
it doesn’t matter, Jesus wants you to come home.

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