God the Father welcomes us home

There's nothing like coming home. Before I'm even out of my car, one of my family members is usually poking their head out the door, grinning. My sister acts as pack mule and helps me carry in my numerous bags, and everyone wants to hear about my life and see my pictures.

My mom cooks my favorite dinner, I get to pick the entertainment and people hug me. I am wanted, needed and appreciated, accepted unconditionally [even in my weird moments] and known. It's a reflection of the home we have in our Heavenly Father, who, even if we have a less-than-ideal home life, is the fulfillment of every homesick pang for how things should be that we've ever felt, the home we've always been yearning for.

In the 2012 Buckner International Advent Guide, Dr. Shirley Freed retold a prodigal son story that included an image I'm still thinking about now during Lent, as I read the story of the Merciful Father from the Gospel of Luke.

In the story told by Freed, a boy who has run away from home wants to come back and writes a letter to his dad telling him to tie a white rag to a certain tree on their farm if he still wants him. The rag on the tree will tell the boy if he should get off the train or not as it passes through that area.

When the train rounds the corner, the boy asks the man sitting next to him to look at the tree -- he is too afraid to see the outcome. The man looks and sees the tree covered in white rags, calling the boy back home.

What strikes me most in this story and the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32 is the automaticity of the father's love in comparison with the hesitancy the son imagines his father's love as.

In both stories, the son is unsure of his father's love, allowing his sins and shame to separate him from his father who, in reality, doesn't care about any of the wrongdoings as long as his son is with him.

So many times we have this image of a God who won't want us back. Our sins keep us trapped in the lie of separation from our Father because we're afraid that maybe this time we've messed up too badly, that we shouldn't or can't go home to him.

But our God is the One tying all the white rags on a tree, declaring yes, he wants us, more than we could ever fathom, more than we could ever hope to be wanted.

He's the One running out to meet us even when we're a long way off, the One calling us -- not sinner -- but rather, daughter or son. He's the One who takes us just as we are, the One who, while we're fumbling with our words apologizing for our shortcomings, throws his finest robe around us, cooks us our favorite dinner and celebrates because we're with him, because we're home.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Mo., native studying at Truman State University. She loves performing, God and the color purple -- not necessarily in that order.