Returning home, opening the door again

The words "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it" from Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing echo in my ears after the song concludes--because they speak to my condition as a lifelong Christ follower (and I expect to most of us).  We are a wandering, disconnecting, wrestling, forgetting, changing people.

This has been a hard semester for me--a combination of physical (1st trimester pregnancy!), a little burn-out, a bunch of overschedule, and some significant waves of ministry/work crisis beyond my control.
Stir that in with a dash of the despair of feeling like a "professional" Christian and you can tell it's the end of April. In just a week or so the semester is over and the space to go deep and listen will return, slowly.

Nouwen's words speak to me often and today this is the passage that I came across:





My life drifts away from God.
I have to return.
My heart moves away from my first love.
I have to return. 
I realize the importance of returning over and over gain.

He goes on to say that the prodigal child didn't return because of a renewed love for his father. "No, he returned simply to survive....I am moved that the father didn't require any higher motivation...This is a very encouraging thought. God does not require a pure heart before embracing us."  (from The Only Necessary Thing, pg. 72-73).


For those of us followers who keep wandering and returning, what words of invitation to us--God our Mother, God our Father continues to embrace us in whatever we condition we return.

If we are in survival mode, we are embraced.
If we are in the midst of sin, we are embraced.
If we come out of desperation and not faith, we are embraced.


God's love does not require any expectations about why we are returning.