Son Returns Home After Fourteen Years

My praise report is related to the theme of this year—the year of His restoration—that Pastor Joseph Prince preached about.

We are Jewish believers in Israel. Our firstborn son is Joel, born in 1977. The name means “the Lord is God.” Our son had a very severe form of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). When he was a teenager, he left the Lord and went on a dangerous downward spiral. During this time, my husband and I were at our wits’ end on how to help him and how to discipline him. We were under legalistic teachings at that time and nothing we did seemed to help as whatever we did only made things worse.

After completing his military service, Joel left for the United States and stayed there for fourteen years. While he was living there, the Lord gave me a word of promise regarding our son from the book of Joel (2:25): I will restore the years the locust has eaten. I cherished that promise for many years.

Suddenly at the end of 2014, Joel announced that he wanted to come back home to Israel. We were overwhelmed with joy and he did come back. He stayed in a rental unit that is part of our house and we had the most blessed year of quality time with him. While here, he married a lovely woman whom we love. Both of them are seriously seeking God.

We thank God that He was faithful to fulfill His promise to restore the years the locust had eaten in this year of His restoration!