The Runaway

by Patti Brand Stephen - written August 17, 1979

I was going through some of my papers this week and found a few of my poems which I had written back in my early 20's.  I wrote this particular poem/song over 33 years ago.  It was about someone who had walked away from his family and his relationship with the Lord.  He had been married for a long time to a woman who had been the love of his life and they had two children together (one son who had died in a bicycle/car accident a few years earlier).  He ultimately left his wife for someone else.  He had a successful business and was quite prideful and sometimes arrogant, but he was a basically a nice man.  He was my landlord and owned the apartment building I rented in Riverside.  He had no idea I was aware of all these things about him.  One of his family members told me about his situation, and from that point on, my heart was simply broken. It made me so sad to see the pain that had seared the hearts of everyone involved.  For some reason, I felt inspired by the Lord to write this about him, and I was able to sneak a copy of it into his home when dropping off my rent check (without my name on it as the author of course).  I had hoped he would read it and perhaps might be challenged to make some changes in his life.  Not long thereafter, I moved away to Chicago, and as far as I know, he never turned back to the Lord nor his family.  I learned that he died a few years later of a rare medical condition and was all alone.

The Runaway 

When questioned on this matter, how can you justify

The fact that you have left your first love and slowly watched it die?

How can you reason in your heart the guilt that you must bear

The secret sin that stains your life shows on the face you wear.

As you’ve often wakened in the midst of lonely sleepless nights

You struggle in the battle of what is wrong and what is right.

Who wins the final battle will be evident in time

For you know before it’s over that within your heart you’ll find.

That you traded away your honor and exchanged it for a lie

And believed that it was hopeless long before you’d even try

To change the mis-matched patterns that were woven through your past,

And doubtful, very doubtful that the “good” would ever last.

(Chorus) Oh child, know that I love you and My heart is grieved within,

To know that you just turn from me and continue in your sin.

How many sorrows will be yours before you start to see

That I loved you with a love drawn from eternity.

Are you really that sufficient that you can toss my love aside?

Or has it somehow lost its way beneath your stubborn pride?

What thoughts must travel from your mind into your closet heart

At night when all is quiet and your room is still and dark?

Have you kept no mercy? Won’t your conscience be relieved?

Can you tell me that you simply have no time left to believe?

Or is the truth you’ve left the only way you know is right?

Disguised with worldly rationale and veiled in subtle light.

For you walk away in silence and the bond of love is torn.

Can‘t you see that my love’s deeper than any scar you’ve ever worn?

(Chorus)

And the chasm grows between us and can’t be bridged by empty words.

Nor by vain and useless promises that o’er the years I’ve heard.

Can I not bless you any better? Or shall I take away your props

Of all that means so very much to you before your running stops?

And the prayers I’ve heard in heaven from those whose hearts were sore

From the heartache you have left with them and the burdens that they bore.

Weighed so heavily upon them that it causes me to mourn- for you, my child

Because it’s Me, not them, you’ve scorned

For I’ll not force my way upon you, but I’ll make you more aware

Of ways that will remind you that you’re always in my care.

But when your riches turn to ashes and your life has turned to dust,

You will look back on the things in which you’ve put your trust.

And your mind will grow so weary as you reap the things you’ve sown

Perhaps my child, you’ll realize, it’s time to come back home.