Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: How to be Saved (07/02/26)
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TITLE: "Help Me!" | Previous Challenge Entry
By Bridget Bewick
07/06/26 -
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It is hardly a whisper and nobody hears. The pigs continue to root around the trough and the young man wipes his tears on all that remains of his once rich robe.
“Help me!”
He doesn’t even know who he is talking to, who he hopes will answer. The pigs don’t care. There is nothing to do now but lie down in his hunger and wait. For death or rescue.
In the hollowness of sleep he enjoys again the rich robe on his back, the jewels on his hands, the coins in his purse. He hears the laughter and the singing, sees the faces of his erstwhile friends, feels the touch of the women. So many women. Below and above and around it all, he hears a voice crying out, and wakes to find that it is his own.
“Help me!”
There is no one to hear. There is only darkness and pigs and hunger. Emptiness fills him. Pre-dawn silence surrounds him. And in the silence, an echo. An echo of a voice from long ago. An echo of a memory from far away.
“In return and rest you shall be saved.” *
It is the echo of Isaiah, spoken by the memory of a childhood tutor.
“In return and rest you shall be saved.”
He stands and looks about him, bewildered. The first hint of morning shows him sleeping pigs, and for the first time in many weeks his shame overpowers his hunger. He turns and walks into the darkness.
His going is slow and painful. He ties rags around his feet, begs water at village wells, and eats what little the famine ravished country can spare him. For three days he walks away from the dawn. With every step the voice grows stronger, the memory clearer.
“In returning and rest you shall be saved.”
On the evening of the third day, the fields he limps through and the houses he passes, resolve themselves into his own village. Home. He pauses, afraid that he is wrong. Afraid that here there is no welcome. Afraid that here he will find only the condemnation he deserves.
Out of the setting sun, a figure comes running to him and wraps him in his embrace, and covers his pig dirty, tear stained face with kisses. The young man drops to his knees, wets the ground at his father’s feet with his tears, and covers his head with the dust of the road.
“My father. My father. I have sinned. I am not worthy. In your mercy let me be your servant.”
“My son. My son. You have returned. You were lost and now you are found. You were dead and now you are alive. Welcome home.”
*Isaiah 30 v15 ESV
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And thank God for His ever open doors for those of us who left and then returned (never to leave again). Halleluyah