A Mother’s Heart Cry for a Wayward Child

by Tony Ayawa.

There was this childhood friend of mine by the name Pedro. Tall, handsome and the only son of his parent, his four sisters and the parent are devoted Christians in a Pentecostal assembly. But Pedro’s lifestyle defiles...
biblical injunctions and good parental upbringing… “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, my son if sinners entice thee consent thou not” his parent would lovely warn.

These warnings fell on deaf ears, to Pedro, they were tinkling sound. As time grew old, Pedro developed thick skin and kissed the devil deeper, plugging in to the lifestyle of the street masterminding assorted atrocities:  Oliver- twisting, cultism, sex and drug addiction, kidnapping, just to mention a few.

The family fasted and prayed to ward off this devil’s stain in their only son’s heart. The mother took a step further with a motherly heart crying and writing prayer requests imploring God’s mercy and salvation for their only son’s soul. Every rising sun she anticipates her son’s repentance. 

However, the more she prays and hope the closer Pedro trek with the devil; Covering the family with the blanket of shame and disgrace. 

No week passes without a neighbor or the police coming to report Pedro’s latest crime to the family. It was so disgusting that the father threw blames on the mother for not being responsible in the home front. Not minding, she swallow all the accusations with dignity and respect to the man she vows to love for ever. 

On a smiling Sunday evening, the mother sat him down and tells him about the love of God….’’come now and let reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be as red like crimson, they shall be as wool….God is willing to forgive you for all you have ever done if you can give him a chance”.  Still he waxed stronger and stronger swimming into the ocean of sin.

As seconds runs into minutes and minutes into hours, hours into days, and days into weeks and weeks into months and months roll into years, Pedro remain sin- focused like a trailer heading to God knows where. 

When Pedro committed his fifth rape; on hearing the news, before you can blink your eyelids his father fell down and breathes his last. Everyone thought that his father’s death will be the sacrifice that will at least melt his rocky heart and bring him to the throne of repentance; all these thoughts proved abortive, nevertheless, his mother never loss hope of her only son’s repentance.  For the third time, she called him and gave him a biblical warning with tears rolling down her oval cheeks….’’my son, there is a way that seems right to a man but the end thereof is the ways of death’’. This warning almost won his stubborn heart but he shrugs it away.

Though Pedro refuses the call of God for repentance the mercy of God never left him. The turnaround in his life came when he boarded an interstate coastal bus to pay a visit to his girl lover; there in the vehicle he met an evangelist who began to unveil God’s love for a lost world through salvation. 

“It is of the Lord’s mercy that you are not consumed because his compassion fails not… you are alive today not because of your righteousness but God’s unequal mercy has kept you alive till this hour… For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God send his son (Jesus) into this sinful world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him (Jesus) might be save’’.

“My dear, God’s love is deeper than your crimes. No matter the depth of sins, He can still forgive you. There is power mighty in the blood of Jesus Christ to forgive you” The preacher cried out… These were the power packed words that melted Pedro’s heart, he cried so loud and deep that the bus driver has to stop thinking there was a fight in the bus. He confess all he has ever done and there in the bus he accepted Christ the bread of life and the living water, the one that loves him while he  was still in the village of sin.

 Indeed, the whole community was agog with amazement and excitement about Pedro’s repentance, the church praised God, the community swam with amazing shock, the mother threw a party, heaven and earth celebrated him, at least a prodigal son has return home… Hmm! truly, nothing God cannot do, Christ Jesus has the power to forgive and make a sinner whole!

However, on a cool blue Sunday evening just a week in his newly found joy, (repentance) when Pedro was returning from a home cell fellowship he was knocked down by a drunken cab driver and died instantly but with a handsome smile on his egg-shaped face that sign - post the aura that he has cross the crystal gate of heaven.     

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