“For I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserve.”
-Paraphrase of Matthew 25 by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision
“To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.”
-Confucius
“If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists.
-Jewish proverb
A question has been rolling around in my head since I had to passionately (albeit uselessly) defend a company I believe is doing a commendable work for our world in the social justice realm about two weeks ago.
TOMS shoes is a company that, for every pair of shoes you buy from them, gives a pair of shoes to children in countries where covered feet can mean the difference between life and death because of diseases that inhabit the soil. Millions of children in these underdeveloped countries are getting shoes every year because of the people who decide it’s a worthy cause to support
Millions more are still walking around with unprotected feet touching toxins like our generations have never known in America.
Maybe we don’t realize what’s at stake here. Maybe we don’t quite fully understand that it’s life or death.
Maybe we just don’t care.
This is not an advertisement for TOMS shoes (though if you want it be, the Web site is www.toms.com). This is just a preface to the question that’s been following me for the last few weeks.
What if we lived in a TOMS economy?
One for one.
We buy that cute, overpriced-for-the-sake-of-fashion winter jacket (that might not even be warm). We give a jacket with the same price tag (but maybe a little more functional and a little less stylish) to that homeless person we pass every day on the way to work, who’s only wearing a T-shirt with threads so old it’s almost see-through.
We buy that overpriced-for-the-sake-of-health organic chicken at the grocery store. We give an actual chicken (because they cost about the same) to that widow in Africa who could use it to sustain her and her five children for years and years and years.
We buy that overpriced-for-the-sake-of-living-the-American-dream house. We build 400 houses for the people in India or Argentina or Haiti who live in paper boxes.
One for one.
What if?
What if, for those two bottles of mosquito spray we buy every summer so our kids won’t have to deal with the inconvenience of itchy, irritating bites, we sent a bed net to one of the millions of children in Sierra Leone who die every year from malaria-ridden mosquito bites?
What if, for every bottle of water we buy, we sent the same amount to help provide clean and sanitary drinking water for the children across the ocean who every day consume disease-infested water, who are drinking their death?
What if, every time we paid the monthly bill on our vehicle or our insurance, we sent the same amount to something like the Personal Energy Transportation Project, which provides wheelchairs and the gift of mobility for those in “greatest need and with the least resources in poor and underdeveloped countries” or to an organization like World Vision, which provides small business loans (amounting to about $200—unheard-of startup costs here in America) that impact the sustainability of not just a family but an entire community?
One for one.
What if?
What if, for every penny or quarter or dollar we spent, we gave one away?
What if, for every minute we spent shopping or just playing on facebook, we spent in a homeless shelter, serving up dinner for those who don’t know when they’ll eat again or sorting clothes for those who own only the dirty rags on their backs? What if, for every hour we spent working to maintain our standard of living, we spent walking the streets with the homeless who have lost everything or caring for our forgotten orphans in the foster care systems or the ones on the other side of the world who are watching a generation of parents die from AIDs and becoming heads of households at 8 years old.
What if?
I’ve just finished reading the letters and writings of Mother Teresa, a woman who spent her entire life ministering to the poor, living as one of them and denouncing the materialism of the world by vowing to own nothing. One of the most poignant things she said in her book was, “When you don’t have anything, then you have everything.” She was a woman who believed she could only get close to Jesus when she got close to the poor, when she traded everything for nothing.
What if?
In his book, The Hole in Our Gospel, Rich Stearns (president of World Vision, a Christian relief organization that changes the lives of orphans and widows around the world) said that the total income of American churchgoers is $5.2 trillion (more than five thousand billion dollars). He says it would take just a “little over 1 percent of the income of American Christians to lift the poorest one billion people in the world out of extreme poverty.”
What if?
Other statistics Stearns points out:
Amount available if all America churchgoers gave 10 percent of their salary: $520 billion
Estimated annual cost to eliminate extreme poverty in the world: $65 billion
Annual cost for universal primary education for ALL children in the world: $6 billion
Annual cost to bring clean water to most of the world: $9 billion
Annual cost to bring basic health and nutrition for the world: $13 billion
Total to eradicate the world’s greatest problems: $93 billion (1.8% of American Christians' income).
What if?
What if we could bring an end to world hunger, solve the clean water crisis, provide universal access to drugs and health care for the millions dealing with malaria and AIDs and tuberculosis and cholera? What if we could eliminate the 26,000 children dying every day—20,000 of those related to hunger?
Maybe we’ll never get there. Maybe we’ll never even come close.
But what if?
The other night, I was talking to my 3-year-old about how some kids in certain parts of the world don’t have enough food to eat or the right clothes to wear to protect them from diseases that could kill them or how they don't even have anyone to love them. Jadon, in his innocence and of his own volition, said, “Well, I’ll give them one of my shoes and some of my food, too. And I love them."
May we all have the hearts of a child, hearts that look so much like Jesus.
“It is not our fault that people are poor, but it is our responsibility to do something about it. God says that we are guilty if we allow people to remain deprived when we have the means to help them.”
-Richard Stearns
Thursday, November 18, 2010
letter to my husband
“Together they bore the complete image of God.”
Frank Viola, From Eternity to Here
“Place me like a seal over your heart,
Like a seal on your arm,
For love is as strong as death,
Its jealousy unyielding as the grave
It burns like a blazing fire,
Like a mighty flame
Many waters cannot quench love;
Rivers cannot wash it away.”
Song of Songs 8:6-7
-our wedding verse
Dear Ben,
Seven years. I can’t believe it’s been seven years since this life with you, as your wife, began. And if we’re counting all that came before that day, Oct. 11, 2003, when you recited your poem and I read my “love story” off nine college-ruled note cards held in shaking hands, it’s really been a decade.
A decade. How quickly it’s gone.
Do you remember the beginning?
Do you remember the excitement, the anticipation of meeting this person you’d e-mailed on a whim and who, strangely enough, happened to open the e-mail from an unknown address and responded with honest answers to your questions? Do you remember the traffic lights and the limited parking spaces that kept you from making it to worship practice, to the promised meeting place, on time? Do you remember the awkwardness of that first face-to-face conversation, me a little miffed that I’d waited around for a “no show,” you a little frazzled from fighting your way across the Texas State campus, just to finally say hello (because you knew worship practice had ended an hour ago)?
Do you remember the disappointment in discovering a relationship beyond friends was not part of God’s plan? Do you remember hanging out in the same places with the same people at the Baptist Student Ministry, worshiping together on the music team (I got to make all the decisions then because I was the worship leader :)), pretending the awkwardness had melted away even though it reddened our faces every time our eyes met? Do you remember being the “piano man,” the “guy with the awesome voice” who played every instrument known to man, the man of almost every girl’s dream there in that college ministry?
Do you remember moving on?
Do you remember, two years later, seeing each other for the first time in a year, possibility opening its petals like a midnight-blue morning glory when you realized I had written off all attachments and you had just become “free?” Do you remember watching Harry Potter at a mutual friend’s house, talking about your band and its newly recorded album, asking me casually if I might want to hang out sometime? Do you remember coming to watch me sing the national anthem at a Texas State basketball game—supporting me with friends and as a friend—and watching the football team beat Stephen F. Austin and playing beach volleyball on opposite teams?
Do you remember falling?
Do you remember walking me home at 3 in the morning, after I’d finally sent the university paper to print, holding your umbrella so it encapsulated the both of us while the rain fell in sheets on the pebbled pavement and soaked our shoes? Do you remember scaling the side of my apartment building when my roommate accidentally dead-bolted me out and sneaking in through the patio door we never kept locked and letting me in my own living room? Do you remember our first kiss, beside the theater building pond, when the campus was deserted except for the black birds that startled every time we moved?
Do you remember the certainty?
Do you remember our first date (after you stood me up on a double date to see Sweet Home Alabama and I ended up going as a third wheel), watching the sunrise from Prayer Mountain in Wimberley, driving to San Antonio in my car because all you had was a bike, falling asleep while I was talking on the way back home? Do you remember the Majestic Theatre, watching the Nutcracker ballet, practically dragging me backstage because you planned to propose and I was just hungry? Do you remember dinner at The Olive Garden and that Italian chocolate cake, celebrating our engagement, calling all our friends and family even though it was almost morning, the ring still foreign on my finger?
Do you remember dreaming?
Do you remember Oct. 11, that misty, disappointing-weather day, scrambling to move everything from our spot beside the lake into that small, historical church, starting the wedding 15 minutes late because your new mother-in-law spilled makeup all over her brand new dress, holding my white-gloved hands dampened by tears and nose drip because I just couldn’t hold it together? Do you remember the magical days after our wedding, skipping through Disney World like the two married kids we were, missing our carriage ride reservation, riding on every roller coaster we could find? Do you remember driving all night after our plane landed in Houston, walking into an apartment overflowing with presents and gift cards and hand-me-down furniture and knowing we were home?
Do you remember promising?
Do you remember starting our music ministry, playing in coffee shops and churches and whoever would let us in their doors, writing our first songs together, recording our first album after saving up more money than we’d ever saved and spending it on a CD instead of a home? Do you remember late-night conversations, my head on your chest, your cheek on my hair, date nights whenever the urge struck us, running miles and miles around high school tracks, panic-filled biking while trying to outrun a thunderstorm? Do you remember the one-year-anniversary trip back to Disney World, discovering Downtown Disney, fighting over video games, eating fudge and candy apples, buying our second set of Mickey and Minnie Mouse hats so people would think we were newlyweds and let us cut in line?
Do you remember hoping?
Do you remember that first pregnancy test and the three more after it because we couldn’t quite believe it was true, buying our first and only house (so far) and turning it into our home, new and old jobs? Do you remember Lake Conroe and reconnecting and strolling through Old Town Spring like just-married lovers and biking through Sam Houston National Park (well, I was biking at least…you were flying over your handlebars) and watching the sunset on Lake Conroe while devouring our Subway sandwiches (6-inch for me, 12-inch for you)? Do you remember the joy of number 2 and the surprise of number 3 and the fear mixed with excitement at our quickly growing family, the intentional late nights and early morning chats squeezed in after the kids were asleep and before they woke up for the day?
Do you remember?
In seven days we will mark our seventh anniversary. Seven years of memories. Seven years of this sometimes-intense, sometimes hard, always beautiful journey of getting to know each other better. Seven years of daily becoming a more and more complete image of God.
So I just wanted to tell you that, even if I had known the time I would waste cleaning our room or doing your separate laundry because, somehow, your shoes don’t make it into the walk-in closet and your clothes don’t make it into the laundry hampers, even if I had known how busy our life would be and how it sometimes just makes my head spin to think of all we have to do in one day, even if I had known we’d have a field growing in our backyard because you don’t like to mow, I would still choose you. Because you fit. What you bring to our marriage—strength, faith, love in spite of my imperfections—is exactly what completes me. And eight years ago, when I begged God to protect my heart so it wouldn’t be broken again, when I entreated him to only let go of my heart when the man-boy he had chosen for me came along, he did exactly that. He held it, and when the time was right, he gave it to you.
I love you more than any words could ever say. More than any numbers could quantify.
So here we are. Seven years down the road. Seven years of laughing and crying, fighting and making up, planning and dreaming. In the years to come, I look forward to learning even more of the mysteries of you. You have placed me “like a seal over your heart,” just like our wedding verse said. Thank you for the man you were, are and continue becoming. You are my lover, my sidekick, my best friend. And you are “radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand.”
143.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The whole world is in capable hands...
Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the skies…
How priceless is your unfailing love!
Both high and low among men
Find refuge in the shadow of your wings.
-Psalm 36: 5,7
My 3-year-old just graduated to a booster car seat. My 15-month-old is daily increasing his vocabulary. My infant just turned one month old.
It’s been an eventful month since Hosea joined our family. There have been good times…like intentional family picnics and walks to the neighborhood pool—times when it was easy to say, “God, I love these children so much my heart is going to explode.” Even our first plane trip to Arizona so the band I share with my husband could record our third music project, a full-length worship album.
While it was difficult juggling the three boys and some days I had to remind myself, “God, I love these children so much my heart is going to explode”—the days when I would start to feed Hosea just minutes before Asa would slip on a blanket Jadon had left on the floor and bust his head on the tile at the same time Jadon would urgently announce, “I need to go potty!”—I count the trip among the good times of the last month.
Good times because there were some much more challenging times.
The first time we noticed the bruised bump on Jadon’s back, we thought it was exactly that. A bruise. One that would eventually go away.
A month, two, passed. It didn’t go away, but we thought maybe it was because he’s a normal boy—rough and rowdy and rambunctious—and kept bruising it during wrestling matches with his little brother or his daddy.
So we waited another month. Two. Three. I made a mental note to make an appointment with our pediatrician so he could check it out, give us his medical opinion. Set our hearts at ease.
Then Hosea was born. A fill-in pediatrician scratched down on her official notepad that his heart sounded like it might have a murmur that should technically have gone away 48 hours after his birth. A little side note on her “he’s healthy” assessment. A big, bold headline in our “he’s perfect” assessment.
A week after his birth, we took Hosea to our pediatrician. He’d gained almost a pound and had grown an inch and a half. The murmur was still there.
He couldn’t explain the lump on Jadon’s back.
So we found ourselves, one week before leaving for our Arizona trip, visiting a dermatologist for Jadon and a pediatric cardiologist for Hosea.
I couldn’t help but panic. My firstborn had a lump. My newborn had a heart murmur.
I cried so much in that one week. Every time I thought about Jadon, held his little-boy hand in mine, kissed his sweet, growing-up face, panic would claw at my throat. Every time I thought about Hosea, held the bundle that barely filled my lap, kissed his tiny-baby face, fear would burn my eyes. Every time I perused the Internet, looking for information about a lump on a child’s back and what it could possibly be and about a heart murmur and what we could possibly do, crushing despair would immobilize everything but the tears.
Oh, God, I love these boys so much my heart could explode.
The fear, the panic, the crushing despair, made me start to believe that God couldn’t possibly bless me with three perfectly healthy children. I kept thinking my “favor” had run out, that I didn’t deserve what favor I had been given.
Every time I thought about it—which was every time I had a moment to think—I cried.
Four days before our trip, we sat in the waiting room at a dermatologist’s office. My hands shook as I held Jadon’s all the way to the examination room. I began to think that maybe if I had protected Jadon more, tamed his wild ways, the lump would not be there. Maybe if I had spent more time praying or reading God’s word or just hanging out with him, none of this would be happening.
The dermatologist examined Jadon’s back, felt the raised area and concluded it was a benign buildup of fatty tissue that, as long as it’s not bothering Jadon, would not have to be removed. We made a follow-up appointment for October, just to make sure the lump hasn’t grown and still isn’t bothering Jadon, but the dermatologist didn’t seem concerned at all, said sometimes lipomas (his technical term) can develop if there’s been trauma to the area, which happens nearly every day with our energetic 3-year-old.
That same afternoon, Jadon and Asa made friends with some children in the waiting area while Hosea was hooked up to some machines at a cardiologist’s office. I watched the doctor do an echocardiogram of my 2-week-old, stared as he pointed out the four chambers of my tiny baby’s heart, marveled as he pointed out the miniature arteries and blood flow to and from the heart. Maybe every other day I take it for granted, but that day I saw the miracle of every miniscule piece working together to keep my baby alive.
The cardiologist concluded that Hosea’s heart is perfectly normal, that his blood just rushes quickly and makes a whooshing sound as it’s flowing to and from the heart, but that it’s nothing abnormal. He’s a perfectly healthy baby.
The relief was…overwhelming.
The day before our double-appointment day, Ben had sent me a text that said, “God’s love for you will not run out.” Made me cry, of course. Maybe he had no idea how much I needed to be reminded of that. Maybe he did.
But two weeks ago, when my children received their clean bills of health, I felt that love. I realized, with almost-desperate relief, that the God who loves me—who LOVES me more than I can even comprehend, more than I can possibly love my children—has every single detail of my world in his hands.
He’s got the tiny little babies in his hands. He’s got the mothers and the fathers in his hands. He’s go the sisters and the brothers in his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands.
He’s got the whole world in his hands. The WHOLE world. That whole world includes Jadon. Asa. Hosea. Ben. Me.
Thank you, God, that you have the tiny little babies and the precious little boys and girls and even the mamas and daddies in your hands.
Your faithfulness to the skies…
How priceless is your unfailing love!
Both high and low among men
Find refuge in the shadow of your wings.
-Psalm 36: 5,7
My 3-year-old just graduated to a booster car seat. My 15-month-old is daily increasing his vocabulary. My infant just turned one month old.
It’s been an eventful month since Hosea joined our family. There have been good times…like intentional family picnics and walks to the neighborhood pool—times when it was easy to say, “God, I love these children so much my heart is going to explode.” Even our first plane trip to Arizona so the band I share with my husband could record our third music project, a full-length worship album.
While it was difficult juggling the three boys and some days I had to remind myself, “God, I love these children so much my heart is going to explode”—the days when I would start to feed Hosea just minutes before Asa would slip on a blanket Jadon had left on the floor and bust his head on the tile at the same time Jadon would urgently announce, “I need to go potty!”—I count the trip among the good times of the last month.
Good times because there were some much more challenging times.
The first time we noticed the bruised bump on Jadon’s back, we thought it was exactly that. A bruise. One that would eventually go away.
A month, two, passed. It didn’t go away, but we thought maybe it was because he’s a normal boy—rough and rowdy and rambunctious—and kept bruising it during wrestling matches with his little brother or his daddy.
So we waited another month. Two. Three. I made a mental note to make an appointment with our pediatrician so he could check it out, give us his medical opinion. Set our hearts at ease.
Then Hosea was born. A fill-in pediatrician scratched down on her official notepad that his heart sounded like it might have a murmur that should technically have gone away 48 hours after his birth. A little side note on her “he’s healthy” assessment. A big, bold headline in our “he’s perfect” assessment.
A week after his birth, we took Hosea to our pediatrician. He’d gained almost a pound and had grown an inch and a half. The murmur was still there.
He couldn’t explain the lump on Jadon’s back.
So we found ourselves, one week before leaving for our Arizona trip, visiting a dermatologist for Jadon and a pediatric cardiologist for Hosea.
I couldn’t help but panic. My firstborn had a lump. My newborn had a heart murmur.
I cried so much in that one week. Every time I thought about Jadon, held his little-boy hand in mine, kissed his sweet, growing-up face, panic would claw at my throat. Every time I thought about Hosea, held the bundle that barely filled my lap, kissed his tiny-baby face, fear would burn my eyes. Every time I perused the Internet, looking for information about a lump on a child’s back and what it could possibly be and about a heart murmur and what we could possibly do, crushing despair would immobilize everything but the tears.
Oh, God, I love these boys so much my heart could explode.
The fear, the panic, the crushing despair, made me start to believe that God couldn’t possibly bless me with three perfectly healthy children. I kept thinking my “favor” had run out, that I didn’t deserve what favor I had been given.
Every time I thought about it—which was every time I had a moment to think—I cried.
Four days before our trip, we sat in the waiting room at a dermatologist’s office. My hands shook as I held Jadon’s all the way to the examination room. I began to think that maybe if I had protected Jadon more, tamed his wild ways, the lump would not be there. Maybe if I had spent more time praying or reading God’s word or just hanging out with him, none of this would be happening.
The dermatologist examined Jadon’s back, felt the raised area and concluded it was a benign buildup of fatty tissue that, as long as it’s not bothering Jadon, would not have to be removed. We made a follow-up appointment for October, just to make sure the lump hasn’t grown and still isn’t bothering Jadon, but the dermatologist didn’t seem concerned at all, said sometimes lipomas (his technical term) can develop if there’s been trauma to the area, which happens nearly every day with our energetic 3-year-old.
That same afternoon, Jadon and Asa made friends with some children in the waiting area while Hosea was hooked up to some machines at a cardiologist’s office. I watched the doctor do an echocardiogram of my 2-week-old, stared as he pointed out the four chambers of my tiny baby’s heart, marveled as he pointed out the miniature arteries and blood flow to and from the heart. Maybe every other day I take it for granted, but that day I saw the miracle of every miniscule piece working together to keep my baby alive.
The cardiologist concluded that Hosea’s heart is perfectly normal, that his blood just rushes quickly and makes a whooshing sound as it’s flowing to and from the heart, but that it’s nothing abnormal. He’s a perfectly healthy baby.
The relief was…overwhelming.
The day before our double-appointment day, Ben had sent me a text that said, “God’s love for you will not run out.” Made me cry, of course. Maybe he had no idea how much I needed to be reminded of that. Maybe he did.
But two weeks ago, when my children received their clean bills of health, I felt that love. I realized, with almost-desperate relief, that the God who loves me—who LOVES me more than I can even comprehend, more than I can possibly love my children—has every single detail of my world in his hands.
He’s got the tiny little babies in his hands. He’s got the mothers and the fathers in his hands. He’s go the sisters and the brothers in his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands.
He’s got the whole world in his hands. The WHOLE world. That whole world includes Jadon. Asa. Hosea. Ben. Me.
Thank you, God, that you have the tiny little babies and the precious little boys and girls and even the mamas and daddies in your hands.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The child who leads...
The lines on his face told as big a story as the pink scar on his right hand.
It was a knife that did it, he said. His mud-colored eyes were bright, agitated, hopeful—because Eddie, who makes his home between the shelters of downtown San Antonio and the courtyard of Travis Park, doesn’t often have a chance to share his story.
Self defense. That’s what landed him in prison with an eight-year sentence dangling over his head. That’s what chained him to the streets eight months later, when he was released on good behavior, when he checked “convict” on a job application, when the world turned its back on him.
Eddie didn’t turn his back on the world, though. He opened his arms to it.
We met him by chance. A handful of the launch team from Hope Arise, a new church plant in north San Antonio, finished the church’s first worship service together by carpooling downtown to hand out sack lunches to the city’s neediest.
If I’m honest, I’d have to say I didn’t really want to be there on that particular day. I was feeling tired because I hadn’t slept well the night before. It was colder than I expected because I don’t watch the weather channel, and my sons didn’t have jackets to protect them from the biting wind or face masks to protect them from the germs I imagined gripping the people who live on the streets. My stomach was complaining because I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before.
My attitude was all wrong. Then I met Eddie.
I’ve never met anyone like Eddie.
He wore V-shaped blankets draped over his ragged clothes—more than enough blankets, he said, so he could give them away when he met someone who was colder than he was.
He was not the first in line. He was not the second or the third or the fourth. In fact, he didn’t even take a lunch that day—handed the last sack we had in our travel bin to a man in a wheelchair, a man who had more wrinkles on his face than Eddie had. A man Eddie said needed the food more than he did—because a group had delivered some breakfast tacos that morning, and Eddie had eaten his fill.
Maybe it’s silly, but the more I talked to Eddie, the more I heard him quote the word of God with the authority of a beloved friend of Jesus, the more I watched him love on my son, on our group, on his homeless buddies, the more I felt like I was watching a true disciple of Jesus.
A disciple of Jesus living on the streets, carrying a tattered backpack with the only possessions he owns, sharing what little he does have with the people he meets.
He was so much like Jesus.
He and Jadon—my innocent, sees-no-prejudice 3-year-old—formed an immediate friendship, strengthened within minutes by Eddie handing Jadon some stale crackers he’d found in his bag so that Jadon could feed the squirrels and pigeons hanging around. When the crumbs in Jadon’s hand had been offered and eaten, my son followed Eddie across to the other side of the park, where five or six of Eddie’s friends were eating. Even though horror-struck caution started burning my throat, I let him go because I knew he was teaching me something, and I blinked the tears out of my eyes like a mother watching her son opening his arms to danger and disease and almost-certain ruin.
I watched the people around him, people who had lived a life I could never imagine, smile at the words Jadon spoke. I watched them touch his face and his hair. I watched him smile with them and laugh with them and play with them.
Later, Eddie said, “That is priceless,” pointing to Jadon, who was running into the middle of a group of pigeons and laughing hysterically when they took flight. His smile made his eyes shine. “I could watch him do this all day.”
We stayed in the park talking with Eddie longer than we’d expected. That’s why we met Richard, another wrinkle-lined man who had hit hard times but was hopeful they’d turn around soon. I was standing beside him, holding my nine-month-old Asa, when Richard told me with shining eyes that he’d had two children of his own who’d been taken away at the height of his addiction. Regret darkened his face, but his white whiskers stretched into a smile when Asa reached his hands out to him.
I watched, emotion clogging my throat, as Asa nuzzled Richard’s scratchy beard, as Richard threw back his head and loosed a gruff laugh, as Asa smiled at him and touched Richard’s cheek with his tiny little hands.
When we were leaving, Ashleigh Pepper, minister of students for Hope Arise, asked Eddie if there was anything we could bring next time that might make a day easier for him and his friends.
Eddie looked at Jadon and said, “That right there,” with a smile that thawed the last bit of caution away from my heart.
My children, with their unclouded love, their unprejudiced eyes, their know-no-stranger way of making the most unlikely of friends, had made a day for a man who sleeps on iron park benches and wears the only clothes he owns and eats whatever he can find whenever he can find it just a little bit better.
It wasn’t the sack lunch, with its peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and its cheesy Doritos and its 20-ounce bottle of water. It was the children. My children.
Driving home with a tired and hungry Jadon, we asked our son if he’d had fun. He said he liked Eddie. He said, “I want to go see Eddie again really soon.”
I wonder what Eddie would say if he could hear those words.
I saw more angels that day than I’ve ever seen in my two-car-garage-, cable-TV-watching-, too-busy-making-ends-meet-to-really-be-friends world. Two of them were Richard and Eddie.
Two of them were my sons.
It’s true what Jesus says. It’s true that a little child will lead us. My children bore the truth of His words that day.
Thank you, God, that you have given me the privilege and honor of watching, raising, loving these angels. May I never, ever, ever forget.
It was a knife that did it, he said. His mud-colored eyes were bright, agitated, hopeful—because Eddie, who makes his home between the shelters of downtown San Antonio and the courtyard of Travis Park, doesn’t often have a chance to share his story.
Self defense. That’s what landed him in prison with an eight-year sentence dangling over his head. That’s what chained him to the streets eight months later, when he was released on good behavior, when he checked “convict” on a job application, when the world turned its back on him.
Eddie didn’t turn his back on the world, though. He opened his arms to it.
We met him by chance. A handful of the launch team from Hope Arise, a new church plant in north San Antonio, finished the church’s first worship service together by carpooling downtown to hand out sack lunches to the city’s neediest.
If I’m honest, I’d have to say I didn’t really want to be there on that particular day. I was feeling tired because I hadn’t slept well the night before. It was colder than I expected because I don’t watch the weather channel, and my sons didn’t have jackets to protect them from the biting wind or face masks to protect them from the germs I imagined gripping the people who live on the streets. My stomach was complaining because I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before.
My attitude was all wrong. Then I met Eddie.
I’ve never met anyone like Eddie.
He wore V-shaped blankets draped over his ragged clothes—more than enough blankets, he said, so he could give them away when he met someone who was colder than he was.
He was not the first in line. He was not the second or the third or the fourth. In fact, he didn’t even take a lunch that day—handed the last sack we had in our travel bin to a man in a wheelchair, a man who had more wrinkles on his face than Eddie had. A man Eddie said needed the food more than he did—because a group had delivered some breakfast tacos that morning, and Eddie had eaten his fill.
Maybe it’s silly, but the more I talked to Eddie, the more I heard him quote the word of God with the authority of a beloved friend of Jesus, the more I watched him love on my son, on our group, on his homeless buddies, the more I felt like I was watching a true disciple of Jesus.
A disciple of Jesus living on the streets, carrying a tattered backpack with the only possessions he owns, sharing what little he does have with the people he meets.
He was so much like Jesus.
He and Jadon—my innocent, sees-no-prejudice 3-year-old—formed an immediate friendship, strengthened within minutes by Eddie handing Jadon some stale crackers he’d found in his bag so that Jadon could feed the squirrels and pigeons hanging around. When the crumbs in Jadon’s hand had been offered and eaten, my son followed Eddie across to the other side of the park, where five or six of Eddie’s friends were eating. Even though horror-struck caution started burning my throat, I let him go because I knew he was teaching me something, and I blinked the tears out of my eyes like a mother watching her son opening his arms to danger and disease and almost-certain ruin.
I watched the people around him, people who had lived a life I could never imagine, smile at the words Jadon spoke. I watched them touch his face and his hair. I watched him smile with them and laugh with them and play with them.
Later, Eddie said, “That is priceless,” pointing to Jadon, who was running into the middle of a group of pigeons and laughing hysterically when they took flight. His smile made his eyes shine. “I could watch him do this all day.”
We stayed in the park talking with Eddie longer than we’d expected. That’s why we met Richard, another wrinkle-lined man who had hit hard times but was hopeful they’d turn around soon. I was standing beside him, holding my nine-month-old Asa, when Richard told me with shining eyes that he’d had two children of his own who’d been taken away at the height of his addiction. Regret darkened his face, but his white whiskers stretched into a smile when Asa reached his hands out to him.
I watched, emotion clogging my throat, as Asa nuzzled Richard’s scratchy beard, as Richard threw back his head and loosed a gruff laugh, as Asa smiled at him and touched Richard’s cheek with his tiny little hands.
When we were leaving, Ashleigh Pepper, minister of students for Hope Arise, asked Eddie if there was anything we could bring next time that might make a day easier for him and his friends.
Eddie looked at Jadon and said, “That right there,” with a smile that thawed the last bit of caution away from my heart.
My children, with their unclouded love, their unprejudiced eyes, their know-no-stranger way of making the most unlikely of friends, had made a day for a man who sleeps on iron park benches and wears the only clothes he owns and eats whatever he can find whenever he can find it just a little bit better.
It wasn’t the sack lunch, with its peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and its cheesy Doritos and its 20-ounce bottle of water. It was the children. My children.
Driving home with a tired and hungry Jadon, we asked our son if he’d had fun. He said he liked Eddie. He said, “I want to go see Eddie again really soon.”
I wonder what Eddie would say if he could hear those words.
I saw more angels that day than I’ve ever seen in my two-car-garage-, cable-TV-watching-, too-busy-making-ends-meet-to-really-be-friends world. Two of them were Richard and Eddie.
Two of them were my sons.
It’s true what Jesus says. It’s true that a little child will lead us. My children bore the truth of His words that day.
Thank you, God, that you have given me the privilege and honor of watching, raising, loving these angels. May I never, ever, ever forget.
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