Loving a Prodigal: Love Never Gives Up

Once a month I write a letter to the wonderful Prayer for Prodigals community I am part of.  Often those letters, though specific to those who love a prodigal, apply to any or all of us in the challenging circumstances of life.   

Dear Lover of Prodigals,

It’s hard to keep loving sometimes, isn’t it?

When your prodigal breaks your heart, or frightens other children, or destroys your car or your home, or makes another stupid choice or rejects that love you keep pouring out….

Then sometimes your heart feels hard.  You feel like you can’t keep going.  You think you will give up.But you don’t give up.  Because you do love that wayward one.Which of course we learned from our God, who keeps on loving, keeps on believing, keeps on forgiving.  Who never gives up on us.

That’s what our Prayer for Prodigals community is all about.  Strengthening and sustaining each other in the wilderness days (or months or years).  We pray and encourage and stand with.

And that’s what our God is all about.

I am away by myself this week to try to pull together a first draft of a book God has given me to write.  You have already read much of it—in the devotionals for each Worldwide Prodigal Prayer Day and in the monthly letters I send.I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that the title is Loving a Prodigal. Because that is what we must do with our prodigals. Keep loving them. Just as we know and say that there is nothing we can do to make God quit loving us—or love us more—so we must continue to demonstrate that kind of love to our prodigals.

It is what Jesus called us to—to love as He loved, to be willing to lay down our lives.  Of course we have deeply discovered that we are not capable of that depth of love.  We fall on our knees—even on our faces—confessing our inability to keep loving, begging God to pour out His love in and through us.

And He does.

He enables us to love, forgive, extend grace, be strong—to do whatever is the needed demonstration of our love.

The themes we have prayed through each year—Time, Rest, Grace, the Holy Spirit and others—will all be there.  But the overarching picture will be one of living out God’s unfailing, unconditional love for those we long to see on a better track.I am praying as I write that we will each be able to let God overflow us with His love.  That our love will keep us praying and hoping and believing for our prodigals.Will you pray for me as I work on it this week?  I truly need God’s anointing to convey this transforming message—for us and for our loved ones. Thank you for sending your thoughts on the theme for the 2015 Prayer Day.  I am still seeking the Lord on this.  Pray I hear clearly so I can begin studying for our devotionals.

There are lots of requests to pray for.  Do you have any updates?

With His love,

Judy

What about you?  When has it been hard to keep loving?

c2015 Judy Douglass

If you would be interested in requesting prayer for a prodigal loved one, or being a part of our wonderful praying community, respond in comments or write to me at PrayerforProdigals at gmaildotcom.