It seemed like so long ago that I’d left home for college. Me, good ole Sean Pierce. My future was bright. The whole world seemed to lay at my feet. Then came the dorm parties, the beer, weed, pills, and an ever-increasing smorgasbord of other, more potent, drugs. I began to find in hard to concentrate and recall even simple things. It was like trying to look through a deep English fog at night. It was a chore to remember the things I was taught in class and I was soon failing  classes. Depressed and scared at what my parents might think of me, I took to drugs to lesson the pain. One day, I don’t even remember how it happened, I found myself living on the streets. I would fight for a park bench, a sheltered doorway in a dark alley, or even a spot over a steam grate. I begged for money, and stole when that didn’t work, just to get my next fix.

Today in the dark corner of an alley, next to a corroding dumpster overflowing with garbage, my mind once more thought about home, the future I’d planned, and where I was now. Where I was now was indisputable. I was lost, trapped, lonely. I was a dead man who refused to lie down and be done with it. The world still lay before me, but I saw it clearer now, like a war-torn battlefield, littered with mines and barbed wire. The world, I now realized, was an ugly place. And home? How could I ever return? I was such a disgrace. Yet deep within me was a gentle voice that shone through my foggy mind…a single solitary ray of light, of hope.

So it was that I began my long trip home. I walked, hitched, stowed away in the back of trucks and even tried to sneak an occasional ride on a bus. I had but one goal, to get home any way possible. Somewhere along the way I found a black raincoat and put it on. Even in the heat of day I kept it tightly wrapped about me to cover my colorful clothes.

One part of the trip was worth remembering. I was hitching when a rusty old Plymouth, that was once a dark blue, pulled over and the driver offered me a lift.

“Where to?” the stranger asked.

“My destination is Canton, Ohio, but anywhere you’re going that will brig me closer will be appreciated.”

“Hop in. I’m not going to Canton, but I’ll be passing nearby. I’m on my way to a Christian Goth Convention in Michigan.”

“Christian Goth?” I asked, and for the first time noticed his solemn black clothing, his hair was dyed perfectly black. His lips and nails were of a deep maroon. His well-defined face was marked by high cheekbones and a strong jaw, but appeared to be incredibly pale. Eyes as blue as the waters at Cancun were filled with laughter and warmth.

“Yeah, I know. It sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. I’ve never felt wanted until I met up with them.”

“Never?”

“Well, maybe at home, but then when I got into drugs and the Goth culture I could feel them even wishing I belonged to someone else.”

“So you still into that?” I asked, hoping he might have some stash of drugs.

“Goth? Sure,” he replied. “The rest, that’s another story.”

“What’d ya mean?”

“When I found these Christian Goths I found that I didn’t have to change a lot of things I thought religious people had to. I was loved, I mean really loved for the first time.”

“Just the way you were?”

“Yep. They knew about my past, or at least suspected, but they never bugged me about it.”

“So you kept on doing stuff like always?”

“At first I tried. Then I realized that I wanted what they had.”

“What did they have that you didn’t?”

“Peace with themselves, a joy that’s hard to explain.”

“So what’d ya do?”

“I asked Jesus to be my Savior.”

“You what?”

“I prayed and asked Jesus to come into my heart, ya know take all that garbage out of my heart and make me clean.”

“You really believe that junk?”

“If you’d walked where I’d walked and seen the stuff I’d seen you’d know that what I had when I got up from my knees was worth dropping all that garbage down when I was down on my knees.”

“So it worked for you. That’s great.”

“Works for everyone who really means business with God.”

“I don’t know…”

“Aw come on. You gonna tell me you’re life is worse than mine was. There’s stuff I still don’t tell people about.”

“Well, I know about the drug thing. Fact is that’s got me pretty much screwed up. I once had a good family life though, so I guess you had a rougher time than me.”

“See there. You know what you should do?”

“What?”

“Go back home!”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “That’s where I’m heading. I don’t know. There’s this vague thought in my mind that it’s the only way to get out of where I’m at now.”

“You do realize that our meeting wasn’t just a coincidence?”

“What? You don’t?”

“No! God put the two of us together. He wants you to know that you should go home. This is fantastic. One day you’ll understand what it is to be part of one of God’s miracles.”

“How can you say that?”

“You’re going home right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, that’s a step towards the home God wants you to have with Him in Heaven.”

“Listen. I don’t want to get into some religious thing. Okay?”

“Sure, but I’m not talking religion. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He started out with, ‘Our Father’. That’s how we have to look at it. God can be our Father. That blows my mind even now.”

“God can be my father?” I asked skeptically.

“Sure! He made you. He watches over you. He knows your ever thought and action…that’s kinda scary, but if you think about it mothers are pretty much like that sometimes.”

“Yeah I guess they are,” I said and we both laughed.

“But seriously,” he continued. “If you go home, that is to your earthly home, it shows that you have the ability to know right from wrong and make right decisions. And that means you can choose Jesus as your Savior. You do that and you become God’s son, by adoption, as the apostle Paul puts it.”

“So I’m not really a son, but just an adopted kid?”

“Think about it. When you were born your parents didn’t have a choice about whether you’d be a boy or a girl, what color hair or eyes you’d have or any of that stuff. They loved you, sure, but they loved you because you were part of them, right?”

“Right!”

“Well God knew what you’d be like. He knows everything about you and He still chooses to have you for His son. Which do you think is the greater love?”

“God’s I guess.”

“Absolutely. There’s this verse in the Bible that I really love. It says, ‘For God commendeth His love towards us in this, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.’ Now that’s love.”

“Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that God loves me just the way I am?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s impossible. Do you realize all I’ve done, all the shame I’ve brought on my family?”

“Do you realize that God specializes in doing the impossible?”

“Huh?”

“Listen, God doesn’t want you to be what you are, but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t love you. There’s a difference.”

“He loves me just the way I am. Incredible.”

“I know. Listen, here’s my business card,” he said reaching into the right front pocket of his black jeans and pulling out a slightly crumpled card. “You need to talk to someone, give me a call. My cell phone’s on there. Call collect anytime, any day.”

“Ah, thanks,” I said looking at the card, “Matt.”

“Yeah, Matt Pearson. What’s your name by the way?”

“Sean Davis.”

“I’m really glad we met Sean.”

“I don’t know what all’s gonna happen, but I have to tell you, the weight I’ve been carrying around seems lighter somehow. Maybe I’m not saying that right.”

“You’re saying it just fine. I know exactly how you feel.”

“You do huh?”

“Sure. Like I said, I had a pretty screwed up past myself.”

“Yeah. Say, what about the drugs?”

“I know this is going to sound weird, but I lost interest in them.”

“You lost interest in them? You meant you went cold turkey?”

“Didn’t have to. I’m not saying that will be the case with you, but it was with me. I just didn’t want to do it any more. Instead I hooked up with a group of Christian Goth writers and formed a comic group. We tour the U.S. putting on skits and teaching the Gospel, mostly in high schools and youth groups. It’s a blast.”

“You’re a comedian?”

“Yeah. Who’d a thunk it?”

“That’s wild.”

“It is. Sometimes it gets really wild.”

We talked some more and then Matt let me out just south of Canton. As he did, my younger sister drove by coming back from our aunt’s and saw me.

“Sean? Is that really you?” she said.

“Yeah Tara, it’s really me.”

“You going home?”

“Trying to. I don’t know if mom and dad’ll have me, but I’m going to give it a try.”

“Sean, mom and dad already know you were kicked out of college because of your grades and the rumors about you being a junkie have reached us too, but they still love you. Dad goes out to the corner and looks for you every day and mom keeps your room ready for you. She won’t let anyone use it. She says she knows you’ll come back.”

“They know about my drug addiction and all and they still want me home?”

“Of course, you idiot. What’d ya think?”

“I thought I’d disgraced them bad enough out east that they’d never want to see me again.”

“Fat chance. If they had any idea where you were, dad especially, they’d have gone out and dragged you back home. I think they’re under the delusion that you have some kind of sickness, you know, like the flu or something.”

“It is a sickness, but it’s nothing like the flu.”

“There he is,” Tara said slowing down her red Geo Prism.

Sure enough. Dad was there at the corner near our house waiting for something. Tara said he was waiting for me.

“Is he really waiting for me?”

“You’ll see,” she said, the pulled the car over and called out, “Hey dad! Guess who I got in the car with me?”

He didn’t say anything. Tears welled up in his eyes and began to line their way down his cheeks as he literally ran towards us. He embraced me and hugged my neck, almost as if he were afraid of letting go.

“Hey, I’m here too,” Tara said.

“I know honey,” he said softly. “You’ve always been here and been such a blessing to us that I can’t begin to thank you enough, but your brother, well you know all he’s been through. Now he’s here, home again at last.”

She said nothing, but gave me an icy stare. I didn’t mind. I knew I deserved worse than that and was getting all the attention. I felt a little sorry for my sister and made a promise in my heart to be a better brother to her. But how? Then I thought of Matt. “Dad?” I said.

“Yes son?”

“You know anything about God offering to be our Father?”

My dad and Tara looked at each other.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s well, it’s just that your mother and I became Christians last year.”

“Yeah, after I bugged them into going to this tent meeting.”

“She’s right. Tara has been a Christian for a while now. Took a while for her to wear us down, but well, I guess we got tired of running.”

“Dad,” I said, “I’m tired of running too.”

I kept that black raincoat and hooked up with some Christian Goths in the area. It wasn’t that they were the only ones who had the truth or anything, but a lot of them knew what I went through and what I was going through. It wasn’t long before I accepted Jesus as my Savior. I don’t know if I’d call myself a Goth or not. Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know this. I’m tired of running and I’m now a child of God. Thank you Jesus. And Matt, thanks.