Dear God,
I used the hate the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Almost as much as I hate the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16).
Because it’s unfair.
Here I am, trying to do everything right and good and holy, and along comes Bozo who feeds you a line after decades of smoking weed and sleeping with Los Vegas cocktail waitresses (not that there’s anything wrong with them), and you say both of us get an invitation to your bash in heaven.
What’s up with that?

Why then should I get on my knees every morning and pray a rosary (granted, it’s only been two weeks since I started this)? Why try to abstain from Merlot and vodka when you take the ones smashed into oblivion, too? Why not accept the bong hit next time I’m asked?
See, I have a bit of history of being the responsible, older sister (by ten minutes) in my childhood home. It started back when my twin sister was two years old. She packed her bags, told my mom she was leaving, and headed to the neighbors’ house. Every year for the next 14 years, she’d pull the same stunt at least once a month. At then, once she was old enough to drive, she left for good: to my dad’s house because he had fewer rules.
I wanted my mom to love her less than me. Because I was the one holding my mom’s Kleenex (with one of my older sisters). We cleaned and cooked (okay, not me so much), and folded laundry when my mom was broken. We stood beside her bed telling her that my dad’s leaving had nothing to do with her not being valuable or a good person, that she was the best mom in the world.
But there was never a point system with my mom. As much as I wanted and needed the credit to feel validated myself, my mom insisted she loved us all the same.
After my dad died, and our family reunited, my mom spoke the same words to me as the father said to the older son when the latter poked his dad and said, “Yo Dad, the fattest calf? H-e-l-l-o?”:

My [daughter], you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your [sister] was dead and has come back to life again; [she] was lost and has been found.

The late author and theologian Henri Nouwen wrote:

The parable of the prodigal son is a story that speaks about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all rejections have taken place. It is the first and everlasting love of a God who is Father as well as Mother.

Understood that way, I suppose, this parable is good news for me. Because you know how often I feel rejected (more times than I snack … when the big hand reaches a three, six, nine, or twelve). By my friends. By my children. By my family. By my colleagues. By you.
So often I feel the way Mother Teresa did when she wrote:

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love—and now become as the most hated one—the one—You have thrown away as unwanted—unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer—no One on Whom I can cling—no, No One. — Alone

And although I was a faithful daughter to my mom, and stuck by her in her time of need, I can’t say that my track record is all that good with you. In fact, you’re usually the first person I blame when I approach one of the “dark holes,” as Mother Teresa described her moments of sadness.

For a long while, during the worst months of my pain, I assumed you were like a health care insurance representation—busy taking other calls (and deaf). So I bugged my patron saint, the Little Flower. I begged her to get your attention … to do whatever she had to do (start throwing roses?) to get you off that phone call and within hearing distance of my cries.
I conversed with her like Katherine speaks to her imaginary friends and mermaids in the tub, and told her I didn’t know if I believed in you anymore. Because how could a good God create a person who wants to die more than health care insurance companies want money? I confessed to her that at times, I thought life was just a mishap, a spark that accidentally ignited, and you had nothing to do with it.
I squeezed her medal in my jean pockets, all the while pleading with her to make me believe, to give me confirmation that it makes sense—all of life—and that you were just held up with in a phone call, that’s all.
She did. And she sent me roses. Almost one a day while I skipped between dark holes. Until I began to see that you were busy preparing a feast, for those of us coming home.