Somewhere along the way
I became the prodigal.
Not the rebellious kind you see in stained glass windows.
The quiet kind.
The kind who slowly trades peace
for something that promises relief.
The kind who runs
not because he hates home…
but because he doesn’t know
how to stay while he’s starving.
So I ran.
Into noise.
Into numbness.
Into a bottle that told me
everything would finally be quiet.
And for a while
it worked.
Until the thing that promised freedom
started tightening like chains.
And the farther I ran,
the more convinced I became
that I had gone too far to return.
Too many wasted nights.
Too many broken promises.
Too much shame
to walk back down that road.
But here’s the strange thing about grace.
Grace doesn’t wait at the house.
Grace runs.
It runs toward the people
who think they’ve ruined everything.
Toward the addict.
Toward the ashamed.
Toward the ones rehearsing apologies
they’re not sure anyone will hear.
And when grace finds you
standing there in the dust of your own life…
it doesn’t ask where you’ve been.
It simply says,
“Come home.”
And maybe that’s why
the prodigal story still matters.
Because most of us
aren’t the older brother.
Most of us
are just trying to find the courage
to walk back down the road.