Nobody At Home

A winter weather advisory recently went out for my local area, but everyone was expected to still come to work. But as the day went on, businesses decided to close and let employees go home early due to the worsening conditions of the weather. Icy rain and high winds were causing accidents on the interstate and power outages in some residential and business areas.

I made my way home after our employers gave us permission to leave. Shortly after getting home, my wife also arrived. She said that she heard some schools may let out early. Maybe our son would come home early, maybe he wouldn't. She wasn't sure.

Then I though, "Gee, I wonder how will we know if our son's school has dismissed early? The local news doesn't always announce this kind of information. And, I can't always hear the bus drive past our home. And how will my son know that we're home should the bus drop him off? He will most likely assume no one is home if he doesn't see some obvious sign that we're here. I'd better let the garage door up, or something."

I understood my son's mindset. As a result, I predicted that he wouldn't ring the door bell because he would assume nobody was at home -- I knew that he wouldn't see any use to knock or ring the door bell.

So to prevent unnecessary suffering for my son, I figured I should leave some sign that we were home. Just in case his school had an early dismissal.

Then just as I perceived all of this, I allowed myself to get distracted and failed to lift the garage door to our home.

I totally forgot to follow through with my plan. My idea melted away as I became concerned with other things around the house. I also think that in the back of my mind I had a mindset too -- I partially assumed school would not dismiss early.

A good hour or so went by before my wife decided to sit down on the couch to watch a movie. Then she heard a whimpering sound at the door.

There was my son, standing in the icy cold rain, crying and lamenting that no one was home to let him in the house! He'd stood at the door crying for about an hour before we realized he was there!

Yet all along, we were home. He just didn't know we were inside. And we didn't know that he was outside.

We whisked him into the house and got him out of his cold, wet cloths. We dried him off and had him put on some warm pajamas. Then we quickly made him a hot cup of coco.

We treated him like the prodigal son who finally came home.

We profusely apologized to him and let him know that we didn't realize he was standing outside.

We felt horrible. Personally, I felt like a very bad parent. I felt especially bad because I figured this would happened, but I neglected to prevent it. I simply forgot to push the button to the garage to let it up. All of this could have been avoided.

But after he got warmed up, he started to play and was happy again.

On that day, I learned the dangers of making assumptions. Mindsets should constantly be challenged. And, if you have a good idea -- follow though with it. Especially if that good idea can help someone or even save a life.

But, I learned even more a few days later.

At the time when I was just beginning to suspect the bible was man-made, I prayed. I begged god to help me avoid the path of non-belief.

Just like my son crying at the door to get in from the cold, I cried out to god for help. I begged him to rescue me from the assault against my beliefs.

Yes, it was very bad of me to anticipate our son's early dismissal, and yet I still forgot to prepare. But I can say that when we heard him crying outside, we let him in -- and we did it quickly.

But, when I cried out to god in my hour of need all I heard was silence.

I felt remorse on the day that my son was locked out in the cold. But, I also realized deep down inside, I was simply a good person who made a bad mistake. I will learn from my past negligence and become a better parent because of it.

But for god to ignore his children at their darkest spiritual hour -- what does that say about him?

Maybe that means god isn't home.