The Prodigal Son Returned

On a cold, spring night, a Young Man walked alone,
passing by trees as he walked on the pathway of stone.

The spring had just begun, and the birds were all in a flutter,
but this feeling was not matched in the man, whose soul boiled as thunder.

Faced with the loss of one who he loved, one who had lost all hope,
the Young Man now felt all alone, and he could not find a way to cope.

Angry at God for allowing the worse to come,
he began to lose all faith, in God, himself, and everyone.

And so he walked, a man's whose soul was torn asunder.
Startling it was, as the chorus of a gun's thunder.

Overcome with desperation, he asked God for a sign,
anything to show that He cared for him at that time.

Useless it seemed, that brief, unspoken prayer,
yet the streetlight above caused him to stare.

Coincidence, it seemed, caused the streetlight to fail.
The Young Man stopped but momentarily, irony was never frail.

And so he continued to walk through the darkness until the next light,
and there, as before, he came to a stop, to give some thought to the sight.

That light too was destined to cease, and the Young Man began to wonder,
was this a sign that he seeked from God, or just a colossal blunder.

He continued to trek through the darkness ahead, but soon yelled in pain,
for he twisted his ankle in an unseen hole, and then it began to rain.

Cursing his luck he limped on ahead, continuing into the night,
and each and every time he drew near was a failure of the light.

Despair grew within the Young Man, as he began to see,
that the failure of the lights mirrored his life, this is what it would be.

Each time he saw hope, it would not matter how fast he lunged,
for it would quickly withdraw, all thoughts of it would be expunged.

The Young Man persisted on the wet, dark path, seeing the light by a building ahead.
But rather than fail as those had before, this one stayed on instead.

Surprised at the sudden state of change, he looked at the light above,
and suddenly heard from the building near, sounds of a song of love.

Curious now, he went to the building and spied within,
and there he saw others singing songs about One Who Had Been.

And suddenly on the streetlight near, came a sweet sound of a wandering Dove,
and even in the night, standing in the rain, never had that man felt such love.

The Dove glanced at the man for awhile, and then glanced at the door,
and as the rain stopped, the man looked ahead as he saw The Dove soar.

Walking through the door his life was to change, as his night was now done,
and was soon to learn of the love that was known, only to The Prodigal Son.

For even in dark times, when you go astray, lost in the struggles that you face every day,
in the end the Lord's love will outshine all else, and He will take you by hand and show you the way.