ON FINDING MY WAY HOME...

Stevie in front of 464 Pierce Ave.

There was a day when I was very upset with the way things were at home. I had made up my mind and I told mom, “I’m leaving home and never coming back!” I was three! Yes, that’s right, 36 months old and I had had it!  I can’t recall exactly why I was so upset, only that I was fed up! It was probably that mom hadn't made a chocolate cake or something serious like that! Sure enough a little while later I was gone!  Mom had everyone in the entire apartment building searching for Stevie! We were living at 464 Pierce Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota. They found me! It was 1962 and dad was in Bible School at ABI at the time.

Mom said I had this thing about running off or hiding on her.  She said I used to scare her to death! We would be in a store and all of a sudden I would be missing.  Often I would be hiding in amongst the clothes or running down some other aisle. One time she said I went missing in a department store. As they were frantically trying to find me, all of a sudden over the intercom came this announcement, “We have found the cutest little boy that has lost his mom.  He is here on the fourth floor!”  Mom was on the first floor.  One of the clerks directed her to the stairway and sure enough as she was heading up the stairs I was coming down with a store clerk! “My word and honor...what a kid I was!”

One time, while I was still three, I had walked to the Piggly Wiggly with dad to buy some groceries. The Piggly Wiggly was a fair distance away from our home.  All of a sudden I was missing. Once again, dad was frantic trying to find me and commissioned a number of store workers to help in the search.  After searching for quite some time without finding me, dad ran home to get mom.  As he turned toward our apartment building at 464 Pierce, there I was, standing in my front yard!  Dad was shocked and almost collapsed when he saw me because I had gone all the way home all by myself. But here’s the really disturbing part! In order to get back home I had to cross Snelling Avenue which was a “four lane” avenue. One of the busiest thoroughfares in St. Paul! Mom says, “How Stevie got across that avenue without getting hit by a car or being picked up by someone was a miracle!” For me to find my way home all by myself had to have been because I had walked that way many times before with mom and dad.  I had perhaps become so familiar with the landmarks on the way that it enabled me to know my way home. Landmarks are important but no doubt I had a legion of angels with me too!

That reminds me of another little boy who was trying to find his way home. It was a foggy, rainy, night and he was lost in the city where he lived.  A police officer noticed the little boy and said, “Son, are you lost?”  The little boy said, “Yes!” And he asked the policeman if he knew where the “big cross” was in the city. The policeman said, “Yes, I know where it is.”  The little boy said, “If you can lead me to the cross I can find my way home from there.”

Someone reading this today may be running away from the pressures of your life or perhaps you are lost in all the chaos and you are trying so hard to find your way to a place of peace that you can call home.  May I suggest to you that there is a way to find your way home and that is by way of the CROSS. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the Life." Let someone lead you to HIM! Jesus Christ paid a very high price for you just so you could find your way home! Come to the Cross and you will see!  SRR