“Did I tell you I saw my son?” a mother asked me in a spiritual direction session. About a year ago, her adult son cut off all contact. Since then, her texts, emails, and phone calls have gone unanswered. She suspects he’s blocked her. She doesn’t understand how he could abandon her. She’s heartbroken.
I share this story (with her permission) for two reasons. First, some say the heartbreak of parental estrangement has become an epidemic (see Unpacking the Epidemic of Parental Estrangement | Psychology Today). Second, an image emerged that provided hope, not just for her, but for all.
“You saw your son. What happened?” She said she was on her way home from the grocery store and his car just happened to be in front of hers. She followed him for about ten minutes.
“What were you feeling as you drove behind your long-lost son?” I expected her to respond with words like sadness, pain, or regret.
Instead, she said, “I felt love and longing.”
I repeated, “Love and longing.” We sat with those two words for a moment.
Her greatest desire is her son’s salvation, but she has doubts. I tried to provide a comforting image. “You following him provides a beautiful image of how Jesus follows him. Right on his bumper, with a heart filled with love and longing. Waiting for him to slow down. Waiting for him to turn around.”
Jesus follows us the same way, especially when we stray. Right behind, filled with longing and love, and wanting nothing more than to share that love.
I am reminded of the poem by Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven (1890). The poem describes a man escaping into a world of distractions and God relentlessly pursuing him, like a hound chasing a hare. Or continuing the metaphor, like God tailgating until the person succumbs.
The poem begins with the extreme lengths the man will go to flee from God:
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
But the poem ends with a profound statement from God:
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.
The phrase is a little archaic but could be paraphrased as God saying, “You drove away from love when you drove away from me.”
Please pray for all estranged parents and their adult children who have ‘driven away’.
And if you are careening down the “labyrinthine ways” of life, take a look in the rearview mirror. Maybe it’s time to slow down and let the ‘hound of heaven’ close the gap.
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