Clarion Call

I had pitched headlong from the path and had fallen into a bog of hopeless guilt. As I waited for my deliverer, a messenger came to my side. She pointed to my Fathers house and asked if I would not return. I said that the only way to my Fathers house was to return to my Father. I could never be found inside His house if we were not reunited.
I remember how and when I had fallen, and the condition in which the fall was predicated. I had believed that my desires and dreams could be fulfilled through my own means, and began to pull back from Him, inch by inch, slowly moving away from the protective covering that was provided. As time flitted by, I reasoned that my happiness would be better served if I had no relationship with Him at all. I sought to disown my Father, and made every effort to do so. There began in me a cessation of hope, as I traveled from my Father and my home, all the while hoping that distance would ease the pangs of my broken union. Traversing the slippery slope that I thought would lead me to peace, I found instead a quagmire of shifting sand with no firm footing, as I sank into my own transgressions, unable to do anything more for myself but lie in pain and hope for a miracle.
At my point of no return, there stood at my Fathers house a trumpeter. As his horn was brought to his lips, silence was broken as he inhaled to transfer air to sound. His melody traveled down the slopes, through the meadows and into the darkened forest where I had first lost site of my home. He played steadily, without faltering as his sound moved toward the shoreline and beyond, notes rising and falling in rhythm with the crests of the waves they passed over.
Never loosing clarity or momentum, beckoning strains crossed the wide sea, growing louder and stronger with each passing moment. Sea gave way to coastline, as the clarion call made its approach. Across windswept grasslands and craggy cliffs, the trumpeter had reached his mark. I heard the call, and I responded with a strength and humility that was not my own. Standing, I was instantly transported across the seemingly insurmountable distance to my Fathers house, where He greeted me with open arms. This is where I belong, and with his Grace, I will remain.