Prodigal Siblings

Spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant. A person who spends money in a recklessly extravagant way. This is what "prodigal" means. This makes a lot more sense to me now that I finally looked it up. When we choose to ignore the graces set before us, we throw them away recklessly. I did it. I do it still. We all do. But there comes a time when hopefully we realize we can get back up and be made whole again, and again, and again. That time came for me on December 8, 2008. I had left the Faith for 2 1/2 years.  I had decided I was gonna do whatever I wanted to, and that it wasn't wrong anymore. Have premarital sex with no conscience...even demanding it from my then girlfriend (among many other horrible manifestations)? Check. Curse like a sailor, and even take God's Name? Check. Accept homosexual lifestyle and marriage? Check. The list goes on, and it was what I had come to embrace.  Keep in mind this is well after my addiction to massage parlors and similar situations entrenched itself firmly in my life. It showed up again in the relationship I was then in as well. I had forgotten who I was, and how to be even a shadow of that guy. I was lost. I was wastefully, recklessly extravagant. To this day, in many ways I still am. Damn that concupiscence of the flesh and fallen nature of man! But the best part is...as bad as I still am...I now have recourse in my circumstances. How did I get back? You may or may not agree with this, but I testify to its being 100% true: The Blessed Mother Mary. I asked her numerous times through those 2 1/2 years of hell not to give up on me...to please keep praying for me. If God saw fit to choose her as His own Son's Mother, then she was mine too...and who am I not to turn to her like He did? Best. Decision. Ever. She brought me back on the day we celebrate her being conceived without any stain of sin...the Immaculate Conception. Thanks to her intercession, I was freed from a mutually abusive relationship that week, was led back to Ave Maria Singles less than a month later, and right after joining was contacted by some girl named Theresa Hardy. O yeah, she's now my wife, and mother of our amazing 1 year old daughter. Months later, my band Paging Samuel was founded, and soon after my former girlfriend and I made peace with one another. Since then, Theresa and I consecrated ourselves together to Jesus through Mary. I recommend this practice wholeheartedly. For more info, please find the book "True Devotion to Jesus through Mary" by St. Lois Marie de Montfort. How old was I? 33. Same as Jesus when He died, rose, and ascended to Heaven. And I KNEW it was going to be a life defining year for me even while I was lost. Like I said, I'm still lost in so many ways. But now I have Confession again, Mass where I get to receive Jesus, and a wife and daughter who constantly challenge me to grow...or at least keep trying to.  That brings me to another person who is 33 until next month, and her different, yet no less beautiful situation. I grew up with her, fought like mad with her, joked, with her, played games with her, you name it. She's been through her own (deeper than mine in my opinion) version of hell. She's my little sister. She had been away from the Faith for a while herself. The road back is a difficult one. Some never return. But she did have 2 things going for her: 1) Prayers of loved ones, and 2) The foundation of God that was still in her.  I received the best phone call ever Sunday on my lunch break. I answered, and she said: "I'm found. I was lost, and I've been found." My heart overflowed with joy and gratitude! It takes great love and courage to humble yourself and return...to admit you were wrong for so long. But she did. She told me of her tears of joy after receiving the 2 great Sacraments of Confession and Communion. Would that we always all kept that joy and love burning! But the road is long, and we grow weary.  Coming back to our waiting Father is one great step in the right direction. The Prodigal Siblings have come home!