Almost Lost Read Online Free PDF Page A

went to Sunday school.”
    â€œWould you like to repeat the story as you recall it?”
    â€œWell, this rich man had two sons and one took his inheritance money early, and went to another country and spent it partying and stuff. And when the money was gone, he couldn’t get a job, so he tended pigs, and there was a famine, and he got so hungry, he ate the pig food. Finally, he got so down on his luck that he went home to his father and said he wasn’t worthy to be his son anymore, but could he please be his servant…”
    â€œAnd did his father allow him to be his servant?”
    â€œNo, he put fancy clothes and robes and stuff on him, and they killed the fatted calf, and they had a big feast…”
    â€œAnd…”
    â€œI don’t remember what else.”
    â€œI’ll tell you what else. The father happily said, ‘My son…was lost, and is found,’ and he took him back into his home and heart.”
    â€œI wish it could be that easy for me.”
    â€œWell, were you lost?”
    â€œYeah, I guess. In a way…from both my family and myself…”
    â€œDo you think your mom loves you?”
    â€œI know she did before I got so screwed up.”
    â€œIf you had gotten physically disconnected some way, would she have ceased loving you?”
    â€œNO!”
    â€œI’ll bet she’ll welcome you back with joy and tears, and even pull out the fancy clothes and the fatted lasagna.”
    We laughed gently, and it was like lovely, bright springtime returning after a long, cold, dangerously dark, hard winter.
    â€œWhat would I ever say to Mom? I can’t just walk in like I dropped out yesterday and that nothing in between happened. I’m a different, second-rate, defective person now.”
    â€œWrong! You’re still the same fantastic person you always were. You just got your priorities mixed up for a little while.”
    â€œWill I ever, ever, ever be able to forget where I’ve been and what I’ve done?
    â€œYou won’t forget everything in its entirety, but as you replace the negatives in your life, no matter what they were, with brilliant-wattage positives , the monsters of your past will slowly become distant grey shadows.”
    â€œI can’t believe that’s possible, not with what I’ve done.”
    â€œIt is! Honestly it is! I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count! If any person really wants to replace badness with goodness, helplessness with helpfulness, failure with success, unhappiness with happiness, he or she can! People just need to be taught how , and then do the work required. The first and right-now question is, can you forgive yourself?”
    â€œI’m not sure.”
    â€œWere you taught in Sunday school that God could forgive you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI think much more often than not, God forgives people but people refuse to forgive themselves! Does that make sense?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œWill you ponder a little on that till the next time I see you?”
    â€œYes…but…”
    â€œBut what?”
    â€œI’m still a little…no, a lot …scared and lost. I feel like I’m filled up to my eyebrows with…” (He didn’t seem to be able to find the words to describe his load.)
    â€œGarbage?”
    â€œYes, rotten, stinking, dead horse, maggot-infested…”
    â€œI get the picture.”
    â€œThere’s absolutely no room left for anything good.”
    â€œThen why don’t you dump the garbage?”
    â€œI’d like to. It’s like rotting me from the inside out.”
    â€œWell put, smart person! I think you know moreabout how your ‘YOU’ works than you ever imagined!”
    â€œCan’t you just hypnotize me and wipe out everything in my memory for the past year or so, sort of like amnesia or something?”
    â€œSorry, but we’ve got to take it a little slower