“Mommy, why is there war? Why can’t people get along?” I asked, snuggled beside her with a book in hand. We had just moved into my grandmother’s house after leaving my alcoholic father. This was the conversation opener that led me to give my 3-year-old heart to Jesus, believing only He could help with all the pain in this world.
When I turned five, I started at a local Christian school. I went there from primary to ninth grade. I learned memory verses, had chapel on Wednesdays, and sang on the worship team. When I wasn’t at school, I was going to Bible camp, youth groups, and helping out with the kids in Sunday School. I was your prototypical church kid . . . until I wasn’t.
“Mom, I want to go to public school next year.” It was exhausting trying to do the right thing all the time, and I wanted to see what else was out there. Besides, even when you did the right thing, it still didn’t seem to turn out the way you wanted it to.
Reluctantly, my sweet mother let me go to public school for high school. There were a few other teens from the Christian school that were going, so she figured we would stick together. We didn’t. They joined the band, and I joined the parties.
It was freeing to let go of the rules I had lived by. I became friends with a group of girls a year ahead of me who were also battling traumatic childhoods. We bonded over our pain and spent the weekends partying together. I was running full-tilt toward darkness, knowingly turning my back on Jesus.
I went down a dark path of self-destructive behavior, disappointed that just like my Father, God didn’t seem to care enough to help me. My emotions would come out of me like hot coals of anger, affecting the ones I loved most. I was angry at God. Angry at my father. Angry for being here in this world.
I left high school and cleaned myself up enough to go to university. I made some beautiful, free-spirited friends who supported and accepted me where I was. After graduation, I spent significant time backpacking and traveling, desperately trying to find my identity and soul-searching to find spiritual truth.
One day in Bali, I saw this pamphlet for a world-renowned healer. We went in the back of a beat-up car, trekked up the mountain, and found his hut in the middle of nowhere.
He was a slender man with a white beard and kind eyes. He brought my friend over first. He laid her down and started tapping her feet. He closed his eyes, meditating on his thoughts before speaking his message to her. My turn came, and I eagerly anticipated the profoundly damaged soul he would find within me. He did his tapping, stopped, and looked me square in the face, a perplexed look on his face.
“Why are you here? You know the truth. It’s been with you all along.”
My heart fluttered, and I knew right then and there in my wayward ways, God was speaking to me. He had never left me, never abandoned me. He had been with me this whole time as I blindly trudged into darkness, unsatisfied and unable to fill the hunger of my soul. That night I could no longer run. I could no longer escape the Truth. Jesus was the only way.
He met me across the world and spoke to me through the words of a Bali man, reminding me that peace was only found through Him.
“How long will you wander, my wayward daughter? For the Lord will cause something new to happen – Israel will embrace her God.” (Jeremiah 31:22)
Wayward daughters, won’t you please come home?
by Natalie Scott 
by Caitlin Henderson 
by Sarah Lango 
