Post 15: A Prodigal Son Returns

Image: AI generated image of a man walking into his home with the words “Home Sweet Home” above the doorway.

Summary: This post discusses returning back home to SC as a new man of God, sharing testimony and fellowship in Christ with family and friends, and participating in volunteering opportunities during my time home.

Returning home, born again:
Growing up, my mom regularly had us attending church and we grew up reading the bible at home. As I became an adult, I removed myself from church or any Godly influence and essentially devoted myself to living a life of sin and indifference towards God. My salvation and return back home was reminiscent of the Parable of the Prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) in that I left home to try and get away from any reminders of God but through His divine will, came to my senses about who He is, repented of my unbelief, and returned home a saved man. You can imagine how my mom must have felt having now learned that I had been saved recently, which is something she had prayed about all of my life.

Since my salvation in Feb 2024, the last time I had returned home to SC for a visit was December 2019. The delay in returning home was mainly because of anxiety around the Covid Pandemic and it's impacts. I knew I was long over due for a trip home. There had also been the most important development in my life that needed to be celebrated...my salvation!

I made the initial plan to return home from Nov 3, 2024 through Jan 5, 2025 at first. I was finding joy being back home as a new man in Christ Jesus, and did not want to leave on Jan 5 so I decided to extend the trip two more months, to March 5. This extension worked out because I was no longer working a job that needed to approve time off. I also had this financial resource that God had supplied, which was an immense blessing that helped the vacation as well.

Celebrating salvation with family and old home church:
My mom, as well as a few aunts and cousins on my moms side, are also fellow believers in Jesus Christ. My witness to them about He saved me was met with excitement, warm congratulation and encouragement. With those in the family who are saved, our conversations were full of gratitude and thanksgiving for God's grace and mercy that allowed for any of us to be saved! We talked a good deal about the many ways God was showing up in their lives as they walked with Him, and how the Spirit helped them to persevere during the hard times they experienced. These times of fellowship with other believers in my family was truly heart-warming and encouraging to me, especially as a relatively new believer in Christ!

One of the things we did together during my trip back home was to read and study daily devotionals from the free magazines she got through InTouch Ministries. We would set aside time regularly to do the devotional and pray together. I was so glad to be able to share my new faith with my mom in this way. I know she was so happy that I was now saved and eager to share my testimony of Christ in my life.

My brothers offered congratulations about my salvation and noted that they thought I had already been saved a long time ago. I made it clear that I had not begin truly trusting Christ for salvation. I also asked them if they were trusting in Christ for their own salvation, and they confirmed that they have been saved for years. I do constantly try to initiate bible-based conversations with them and remind them to seek God in all things, but often times those conversations will shift back to worldly worries and issues.

I was also very excited to return again to the old Baptist church that I grew in and share my witness of Christ's salvation with others who watched me grow up in that church. Sharing the recent salvation of Jesus with my old church family was definitely an amazing and heart-warming experience as well. I also found myself gravitating towards fellowship with more of the older folks who knew me growing up, and less with my peers around my own age or younger folks who attended the church. Our conversations were full of gratitude about Christ's salvation and sharing how God has been working in our lives.

Witnessing to non-believers in the family:
My Dad does not believe in Christ nor think that he needs salvation. He has knowledge of the bible, heaven, and hell, but he thinks that we can get to heaven just by being good people. On several occasions, I would share the gospel with him in various ways, expressing the urgency of it, but it basically fell on deaf ears. He would always say things like “Yeah, I know” in response to the gospel conversations but would then find a way to change the conversation to something else.

A couple of my cousins said they'd often tried to read the bible but found it to be a very difficult read and never could really get into reading it. I shared the gospel with them a few times, and they did initially seem like it was worth a follow up. I would try to get them to come read scripture or study the bible with me, or invite them to church and there seemed to be a weak interest but no real follow through.

Catching up with an old church friend:
I did also manage to catch up with an old friend who I knew from my old church back home. We had planned one Saturday afternoon to meet at a local Chinese buffet for lunch then go to a movie at a nearby movie theater. A few days prior, we had set 1pm as our time to meet up for lunch on that coming Saturday.

Saturday rolls around, and my mom drops me off at the restaurant and leaves to take care of some errands. After sitting in the lobby area for a few minutes waiting on my friend, I text him to get an ETA. About 15 minutes after my text, he calls to say that he is held up at home because some one was visiting his mom and he felt he should stay around for that. He also said that he had already eaten, although we had previously planned to have lunch together that day.

I was a little bit annoyed by this revelation but rather than complain on the phone to him about this, I instead opted to respond with grace and patience, asking how long he thought it would be before he could get me from the restaurant since my mom had already left. He said it would likely be an hour, so I mentioned I would stay and eat at the restaurant since I was already there and waiting. I also asked that he let me know when he is on the way to get me.

I had planned on treating him to lunch but ended up treating myself only since he had apparently changed our pre-agreed upon plan. I had never been to this particular buffet and the food was definitely tasty. I was also feasting on scripture and bible sermons on YouTube, choosing to focus my thoughts on Jesus rather than any annoyance I felt about the situation. This turned my annoyance into rejoicing in Christ and made for an awesome, spirit-filled solo-lunch experience! Amen!

He finally came around 2 hours later, shortly after 3pm, and we headed out to the movie theater. The movie we were planning to see had started at 3pm so we were already running late. In the car, we caught up a bit and I mentioned that I had recently gotten saved. He offered congratulations, and then I asked if he was saved. He replied that he was saved years ago, but had not been living consistently faithfully so there was some doubt there. At the time of this conversation (Dec 2024), I did not have enough knowledge about explaining the assurance of salvation, so I could not really address his doubts, other than to offer prayer and say that it is something he should definitely be praying to God about.

After that, I could tell that he was not really interested in conversation about God/Jesus or salvation and changed the subject back to secular, worldly things and worries (e.g. Job, stress, worries about money, and entertainment). My general reply to all of that was to remind him that, as Christians, we should be giving our cares to the Lord and looking to God when we feel negative emotions over situations that occur in our lives.

We got to movie theater around 3:20pm. We did enjoy the movie we went to see. Afterwards, I got to meet a friend of his, who was rather spirited in his discussion about the movie we went to see and comparing it to other comic books and animated characters. A couple of times during the conversation, he would get a bit loud and agitated trying to convince me when I didn't agree with him on his comic and video game character comparisons. I reminded him that these are just games and comics we're talking about and is not a topic worth the argument or heated discussion, and that diffused the argument before it really began.

All in all, we had a good night and wrapped up the visit. It was good to see my old friend from church and hear about how his life had been going. In departing, I reminded him to pray regularly in seeking the Lord to find the clarity he needs in his life regarding salvation and growing in his relationship with God through Christ.

Participating in a few volunteer opportunities:
Back at my old home church in SC, I decided to make myself useful by looking for ways to volunteer. I helped our church Youth group prepare meal boxes for a thanksgiving holiday meal sharing event with the surrounding communities, which we either personally delivered or arranged for families to pick up from our church. I also helped the church hospitality team in an outreach effort to serve a meal and witness about Christ to men that came to visit from a local men's homelessness/housing group.

My mom and I also decided to participate together in our local area Families Helping Families Gift giving holiday drive where we purchased several gifts from a list our chosen family provided. Our family was a father and son pair. The father asked for a tabletop pool set and the son asked for toy cars, and Spider-Man clothing. We also decided to include bibles and gospel tracks discussing salvation in Christ in their gift packages.

Conclusion:
I ended up staying home for approximately 4 months. During that long over-due visit, I found immense joy in reconnecting with past family and friends and witnessing about the salvation of Christ in my life. I enjoyed much fellowship with the body of Christ as a new believer in the church of my youth. I also made it a priority to help mom with some lingering house cleaning, maintenance, and needed repairs while I was home. The trip home strengthened my faith in God and I was able to see many ways that he was showing up in the lives of fellow believers in Christ! I continue to pray for all those in my family and friend circles who are not saved!

Stay tuned for the next post, where I discuss another instance of gospel persecution, this time coming from my former childhood best friend.