God Beyond My Periphery | Front Porch Forgiveness
My school
days were good, but they were uneventful.
I did not standout in school. I
was not a standout athlete. I was not a
standout student. I was not a standout
rebel. In a crowd I stood-out only
because I was six feet, five inches tall.
I was a back row guy and my style blended in with all the other back row
guys. By the time I graduated I was
ready to stand out.
The thing
about life after high school is all bets are off; slates are clean. Reputations rarely precede you. You can be who you always have been or you
can be someone who you never were. I
decided to be someone who I never was.
My Dad had
offered to pay my tuition had I decided to go to Multnomah Bible College in
Portland, Oregon. I think he wanted me
to be a pastor or something ridiculous like that. Instead I moved into an apartment with three
other guys in Mt. Vernon, Washington. I
enrolled in a vocational engineering program at a community college and got a
job at Target. I was far enough away
from home that I felt independent, but close enough for my Mom to do my laundry
every other weekend and pick up a check from my Dad for living expenses.
Within
months my independence began to wane. I
lost my job. I lost interest in
school. I lost roommates. I lost friends. I lost control. I lost happiness. The only thing I had found was a particular level of despair that was altogether foreign
to me and may best be described as “lostness.”
And after a year of increasing “lostness” I was broken and broke, and
had only the option of moving home.
The drive
home felt like an eternity; an increasingly distant idea in those moments. I was riding with two buddies in an old Dodge
flatbed farm truck with a spring loaded bench seat and dually wheels in the
rear (which I am certain were not spring loaded). Tony was driving. He and I shared a bedroom when I first moved
to Mt. Vernon. We got to know each other
pretty well. He was just helping with
the move. He had found a girl in Mt.
Vernon, so he was staying there. Dave
was next to Tony straddling the long gear shift handle. He was one of the guys I first moved in with
also. The two of us stuck together even more
than me and Tony. Maybe that was because
neither of us found a girl. More likely
though, it was because neither of us had found ourselves yet. I was next to Dave with my face propped up
against the cold window. My eyes were as
distant as my heart, staring at the blur of September color along the freeway.
We were the
truck you don’t drive behind. Top speed
was 50 mph and everything Dave and I owned was perilously tied down… A couple mattresses flapping in the wind, dressers,
old TV’s, several garbage bags full of dirty laundry, some boxes of canned food
and ramen noodle soup, a halogen lamp, and a deer sign with a bullet hole in it
that we stole off the highway one night.
I remember
it was appropriately raining for much of the drive. I don’t think I cared much about my stuff
getting wet. Rather, the drizzle made it
difficult to distinguish me from the other two guys in the truck if you were on
the outside looking in. It also made it
difficult to see any emotion on my face.
So went the days of the life I had lived that previous year.
By the time
we arrived at my parent’s house the sun was out. When we pulled into the driveway I noticed my
Dad sitting in my Grandfather’s old chair on the front porch. My stomach felt sick. I wanted to cry. Surely he knew why I was back. Surely he knew I had squandered everything he
gave me on wild living and now…now I had no place to go. I tried to keep my lips still while I
rehearsed my apology. Dave looked at me,
then back at my Dad as my Dad stood up.
The brakes
screamed for mercy as the truck came to a stop.
The old engine snored more than it purred, and it let out a startled yelp
when Tony shut it down. The rusty door
cried out for grease as I shoved it open and hopped down. Tony and Dave didn’t say a word. Maybe they felt the awkwardness of the
moment? Maybe they perceived my fear in the
moment? Maybe they sense the holiness beneath
the surface of the moment?
None-the-less, I lifted my chin, threw my shoulders back and headed
toward the porch. By the time I crossed
in front of the truck I had slouched back to a defeated position. My feet felt like cinderblocks and my knees
felt like plastic. Again, I wanted to
cry.
The porch
was a small space. There were two steps
up to a concrete platform where there was room for a single chair that sat
behind the swing of the screen door. I
noticed my Dad step forward to the edge of the top step. When I got to the steps there was no room for
me to step up, so I toed the bottom step and kept my head down. I noticed my shadow cast toward my Dad. I noticed the worn leather on his work
shoes. I noticed the thick veins on his
hands that hung near his pockets. I
could barely stand the moment. Then my
Dad stepped down.
The steps seemed
really crowded all at once. I stepped
back slightly as he stepped down another step to my level. It was like a dance. It felt intimate. We knew which way to move.
Finally I
began to cry and I looked up at him. He
put his arms around me and pulled me in before I could see his face; before I
could see any disappointment in his eyes.
I could hear him breathing right by my ear. His breaths were gentle. They did not sound like anxious breaths. It did not sound like he was upset. Then I heard his dry lips separate. He took a breath like those breaths we take
when we are about to say something emotional and do not want to cry.
“Welcome
home son. May I help you unload your
stuff?”
Until that
moment I had never known forgiveness could be more than words. I thought the script went something like, “I
was wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive
me.” To which the receptor replies, “I
forgive you.” I had no idea forgiveness
was a posture that perfectly complements the posture of repentance, and that these
postures fit together in an embrace; a union of emotional petition and
affectionate appeal. Without an
explicitly stated apology and without explicitly stated forgiveness, there at
the foot of the steps to that porch I was forgiven; a Father and a son
reconciled.
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