The Prodigal Father

Forrest Hutter

Description

Just when you think all hope is lost, God will find you in your darkest moment and bring you back home to Him.

When his oldest son was born, Tom had stopped drinking completely. Now with two children and his wife, he had closed the chapter on that part of his story.



Life was never simple or easy for Tom, but he had all he needed to get him through it. Until he didn’t.



In the blink of an eye, he lost the person he loved more than anything… the one thing that always made him a better man, and his reason for everything that he did in life. His wife and soulmate, Emily. Along with her went his faith in a caring God.



The pain of losing Emily was too much to bear, and he found himself consumed by more darkness than he could handle on his own. He became unrecognizable as a father and a man, and each day continued down a path that there was no coming back from, or so he thought.



Even though Tom believed God had truly abandoned him and there was no way to make it Home, Tom learned that we are never alone and there is nothing God cannot do.



In an amazing and emotional story of hope, heartbreak and redemption, Tom’s story shows us that there is always a way back Home and nobody is ever past saving...

Sujets

• Christian Living
• Personal Growth
• Philosophie et théologie
• Hardship
• Prodigal
• God
• Forgiveness
• Religion
• Father
• Family
• Christian

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 12 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664224773
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Prodigal Father
 

 
FORREST HUTTER
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2021 Forrest Hutter.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
 
Scripture marked (KJV) taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
 
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
 
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-2478-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-2479-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-2477-3 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021903601
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 3/12/2021
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24

CHAPTER 1
T he alarm chimed in Tom’s ear. He reached over and swept it to the side to turn it off. It hadn’t woken him. He was already up. In fact, he hadn’t gone to sleep. His grief weighed too much, and he had stayed up dreading the daylight.
Tom stood up slowly and struggled to take the steps to the bathroom. His body felt like lead had been poured into it. His head was aching and felt like it was going to burst from the inside. He had been crying all night. His eyes felt raw from rubbing the tears away.
He reached the sink and braced against the edge. The man in the mirror looked ragged. His eyes were the color of rubies, and the skin underneath them sagged as if falling from his face. His chin and cheeks had stubble that Tom rarely saw anymore. He would have to shave today.
He found the strength to shave and managed a shower. The hot water did nothing for his aching body. He stepped into his room and opened his closet. His suit was waiting for him. He had been keeping the suit for a special occasion. His thoughts were that maybe he could wear it to Jess’s eventual wedding or even Eli’s. Instead, he would be wearing it to a funeral. He swung his legs through the pants, buttoned his shirt, and tucked it in. His now feeble fingers fumbled with the tie as he wrapped the knot over and over again without success. He threw the tie onto the bed and started to let his tears swell.
“What do I do now, God? I waited, and now it’s too late.” Tom hissed the words. The sound of them seemed to strike back and cause him physical pain. “All the years wasted, trying to ease my way back in, one conversation at a time.”
Tom picked the tie back up and successfully completed the knot. He was supposed to speak today. He didn’t know what he was going to say. He didn’t feel he should be the one to say anything at all.
If only they all knew. If only they understood what he was feeling. It wasn’t just loss. It was regret. A heavy guilt that loomed over him, threatening to crush him.
Tom shuffled to the kitchen. The coffee had brewed automatically. He poured his cup and sat down at the table, refusing to think about anything other than the heat of the cup and the steam in his face. He could see through the steam to the mail holder in the center of the table. It was jammed with envelopes—all with Eli’s handwriting. “All those words exchanged, and I never once said what needed to be said between us.”
Tom poured his coffee down the drain. He needed to get out of this house. The silence was allowing his thoughts to scream in his ear. The air was still cool as the dew hadn’t even left the grass. Tom walked to his car and turned the engine over, letting it warm up before he put it in drive. “God, take me somewhere.”
He turned out onto the street and took a right. His mind shut off as he focused on the road. Stop at the stop sign. Look all directions. Slowly accelerate. The blinker click-clacked as he took a left and then drove past the broken-down grocery store.
A fire had ravaged the inside of the store quite a few years ago. The owners never fully recovered from the financial loss, and the store was never reopened. The town hadn’t yet torn it down. They didn’t need the space. The town wasn’t expanding any time soon. Tom drove down main street and passed the bar on his right. It had been a long time since he had stepped foot inside. He pushed those memories down as he continued to drive.
The theater on his left was showing one of those new superhero movies. It was a single-screen theater that had been family owned since it had opened more than twenty years ago. The prices were outrageous for movie tickets, but somehow, they always found a way to fill the seats. They had recently added a clothing and gift shop to the front end. It sold all kinds of oddities that had a representational touch of the town it came from.
Tom passed the library that doubled as the police station. There were two cops on duty at a time. The town population was credited at around four hundred people, but that didn’t account for those who lived twenty miles or more away and still had nowhere else to go.
Tom took a left and let his mind continue to idle with his engine as he cruised through the streets. Not many people in this town were awake this early on a Saturday. It was a community full of hardworking people. Most were small business owners who had a hand in keeping the community alive. Everything from hardware stores to grocery stores. About five miles north was a large lake that drew tourists during the summer for fishing season. The highway ran through the middle of town and would get slammed with traffic in a couple hours. People would stop at the bait shop or the liquor store and load up before they would head out to their cabins or resorts for the weekend.
Tom took another left and drove down the hill toward the train tracks. He felt his feet impulsively feather the brake as he reached the bottom of the hill. On his right was a condemned house. He could see the holes through the foundation that let him see straight through to the grass in the small backyard. Tom knew the house well. He used to rent it. There was a small addition on the south side that had been installed by the owners. Tom was sure it was never up to code, and during the winters, it was so cold that he had put two space heaters inside it just to keep it livable. The rest of the house hadn’t been much better. The stairs leading to the door always slanted to the right, making it feel like he was in one of those fun house tunnels that spun all around as a person walked through it.
The door was always stuck because the foundation was collapsing and putting pressure on the doorjamb. Inside, the place wreaked of old carpet and depression. The living room and the kitchen couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet together. On the right of the kitchen was the addition that threatened to give the person who slept inside hypothermia every winter. On the left was a bedroom that was the same size as the kitchen, and just beyond was a second bedroom, although it was only big enough for a bed and nothing else. There was a single bathroom in the back of the house next to the water heater that never gave more than a gallon of hot water. It seemed to join forces with the house addition and spray him with cold water to let the hypothermia take him even faster.
Tom could remember every detail about the house. He remembered every memory inside too. He could hear yelling and could feel the heat on his hand from the contact of flesh on flesh. He felt the shame wash over him and looked away from the house as he accelerated away. He passed the furniture store on the left that was also the only movie rental place in town. His daughter Jess had worked there in high school.
Tom continued down the road and felt the familiar bump as his car rode over the train tracks that ran through the back of town. A large, brick building was in front of him. It looked like it had been a factory at one point, but it had been the school. The building had molded the minds of kids from kindergarten all the way through graduation f