Two things brought tears to my eyes this past week. One happened on Thursday when the family I was visiting showed me the card their six year old newly placed daughter gave to her new mom for her birthday. This is the girl who wasn’t sure where she was born. She is a HANDFUL -- lots of diagnosis, a low IQ, and for the first couple months was VERY aggressive. But they are hanging in there with her and her siblings.
The card was typical of a six year old in that she said things the same over and over. I love you mom. You are nice. I really love you, etc. But right in the middle of all the love and all of the accolades was a three word sentence that brought the tears. “Please keep me.”
Last night was the second. Bart came home from our ecumenical service with news that one of the local legends, a 40ish mentally ill man in our community approached Bart directly at church last night with a question. A little background: he had lived with his mother all his life and then a couple years ago she died. He has a county social worker and if he is on his medications he is doing fairly well. When he gets off them, he forgets to bathe and has all kinds of interesting behaviors. Right now he seems to be in a pretty good place, but he still has interesting behaviors.
Apparently, in front of the other pastors before church last night, this man asked Bart if he could come to our house for Thanksgiving Dinner. He said, “if you are going to be here, could I eat dinner with your family? I’m so lonely and I don’t have anywhere to go.”
Bart told him he would talk to me, so when he got home Bart told me the story. Bart had preached on Matthew 25 on Sunday, one of our favorite passages. Bart shrugged his shoulders after telling me the story and then said, “Jesus has asked if He can have dinner with us tomorrow.”
Tears came because yes, this is indeed the case. This man would definitely be referred to as “the least of these.” And tears also came because I married a man who so completely shares my passion for reaching out to the least, the lost, and the left out. And tears came because he is so able to clearly see truth, and because he will be more stressed out worrying about how our kids will respond, and because it will involve more pressure for him in preparing the meal, but he is still willing to do it.
So my tears were tears of sorrow -- because we have a world where 6 year old mentally ill girls worry that no one will keep them and mentally ill adults can live in a community where nobody invites them to Thanksgiving Dinner. And tears of joy -- because there are families who will keep six year old mentally year old girls and because I have a husband who will invite 40 year old mentally ill men to dinner.
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