The Father Runs to the Stench
The water is hot enough to sting, but it cannot reach the place where you feel the stain. You scrub until your skin is raw, trying to wash off a memory that no longer exists in the room, only in the mirror of your mind.
The father saw his son while he was still a long way off, covered in the filth of the pig pen, and he ran before the boy could even finish his apology. He did not ask for a bath first.
He did not wait for the smell to fade. He ran to the stench and embraced it.
The light does not require you to be clean before it touches you. It runs toward the very thing you are trying to scrub away.
You are not contaminated by what you left behind. You are held by what found you.
Drawing from
Luke, 1 John
Verses
Luke 15:20, 1 John 1:7
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