The Prodigal’s Father and Hope for Dinner

Greetings and salutations!!!

I’m writing this a couple of weeks, (give or take) from my birthday. I think birthdays are a good time to take stock and reevaluate your life. Just as New Year’s is a good time to take stock of where you want to go for the calendar year, a birthday is a good time to take stock of where you’re going to be in your ***th year.

So, I decided to take stock.

Oh, OH, OH!! I ended therapy! Did I mention that?? I think that while I’m not yet perfect, that I have enough tools to deal with some of the issues that may come up in my life. I mainly went because of Special K, but after some hard thought, I realized that we successfully dealt with that issue and how it left me feeling, compared to how I’m feeling now.

I have a standing invitation to go back if I ever feel the need to, of course. I still believe that therapy is a good thing and that if one can afford to go, one should.

I’m not sure how many people are biblical, but the story of The Prodigal Son is the story of a child who is impatient, and decides to leave his father’s home with his share of the inheritance. Understandably, it goes horribly wrong. He realizes his mistake, and is fully willing to take his lumps. So he returns back to his home to work as a servant. His father, seeing him coming from a long way away, has the house celebrate and throw a huge party. All’s well, right?

Wrong. The prodigal son has a brother who’s understandably annoyed that his wastrel brother is being rewarded for his bad judgment. The father tells the older son: “you are ever with me, and all that I have is yours, but thy younger brother was lost and now he is found.”

It’s a story about redemption and forgiveness. However, we’re not going to focus on the sons today. We’re going to focus on the father. The text of the verse says.

“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.— Luke 15:17–20, King James Version.

I’ve always wondered about the father? Did he remonstrate with his son? Did he beg or try to get him not to leave? As for the son coming back…”when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him…”. Was he looking for him to come back every day? Did he just happen to see him aways off?

I’ve sometimes felt like the father of the prodigal son when it comes to Special K. Hoping that he’ll come back over the horizon to try and rebuild what we had in its purer form before everything turned to crap. This brings me though to the title of my entry. Hopefully it’s clear how the first part relates to the content of the post. As for the second?

There’s a saying that hope makes a great breakfast, but a bad dinner. Namely, having hope at the beginning of the day or endeavour is really good! There’s something to look forward to. However, if at the end of the day, all you have is hope…then things aren’t going well at all, and the situation is dire.

A year ago, when I communicated with Special K last, I was having hope for breakfast. And now, a year later with no contact whatsoever? It’s hope for dinner. Now, some of you might be thinking…uh, why don’t you go out and do something about it? Why don’t you contact him again, make one more effort. No. I quit therapy because I realized that I won’t be a part of someone’s life that won’t have me, and contacting him would be a repudiation of that–and I’m not going there.

So. I think that’s all there is to say. I do like to wrap things up, which in life can be horribly hard. LOL. However, I think with it being a year, we can finally reconcile hope with reality, pessimism with optimism and head versus heart.

That’s all for now!!