The Porch Light That Never Went Off

In 2019, a diner owner in Tuscaloosa, Alabama named Gerald Tate got a call from the county jail. His daughter Marissa — the one who had stolen his truck, drained his savings account, and vanished into a three-year methamphetamine spiral — was asking to come home.

Gerald's older daughter, Keisha, who had stayed, who had worked double shifts to help keep the diner open, who had never missed a single Sunday at Mount Zion Baptist, told him flatly: "If she walks through that door, I walk out."

Gerald drove to the jail anyway. He brought Marissa's favorite outfit — the yellow sundress she had worn to her high school graduation. He brought her home, cooked her a plate of smothered pork chops and collard greens, and sat with her at the kitchen table while she wept.

Keisha stood in the doorway, arms crossed, furious.

"You never threw me a welcome-home dinner," she said. "I never left."

Gerald looked at his older daughter with tired, loving eyes. "Baby, everything I have is yours. It always has been. But your sister — she was dead to me, and now she's alive."

That is the scandal at the heart of Luke 15. The Father's love is not a reward for good behavior. It is a porch light left burning through every dark and reckless night, waiting for the moment a lost child turns toward home.