Pieces of You

Dear Child,

I must confess that I don’t know your name. I’m not even sure if we were introduced to one another, and even if we had been, with the many names that had been given to me in softly spoken syllables, I’m not sure I would be able to recall yours.

But, I could pick out your face.

In a crowd of children, I would remember you.

Standing under the brilliant Haitian sun, the heat causing the skin of my back to sweat, I can recall the moment one little body pressed itself against my side and wrapped slender arms around my waist. A tiny little sun adding its rays to the one overhead. Big brown eyes, so bright and shining that I could barely make out the outline of the pupils, and a smile full of teeth that were still those of a child, not yet making way for the expressions you’ll have when you’re older.

I hope you know I tried. I came with the best of intentions when I stepped aboard that plane a week ago. You were a point of focus for me – go love the children who are without, go look upon their faces and see Me, see the One who created them, bear witness to their beauty in the midst of poverty and try and ease their suffering. That is why you found me standing on the porch of your school that day.

It wasn’t until after I had left that I really had time to think about our time together. Wrapped up in your fierce little hug, I didn’t analyze, I merely lived. Sought only to share that moment, that little bit of space with you.

But later that day, when I reflected back, I had the halting thought that I would never have allowed my own children to act as you did. That I would have grabbed their hand and pulled them back to me had they decided to jump towards a strange, foreign adult and embrace them in a hug. It would have seemed like they had lost their mind. That type of affection isn’t given away without introduction, without knowing the person in front of them.

Yet, you do. You give away freely your hugs and your smiles because you know this is the way it is in your world. Love and affection isn’t an everyday thing, it comes in buses full of foreign language speaking visitors that you’ve never met, but you know, when we smile, that we come looking to be your playmate for the morning and maybe we’ll even have a cookie or a toy to share before we leave. So, you give with abandon.

Now I’m left to wonder, on days like the one we shared, if you aren’t giving a piece of yourself away. If, in my good intentions, I haven’t delivered another blow to the boundaries of your life. That when you give hugs to all these people, you are chipping away the ability to discern what love and relationships truly are.

I came to show you that God created you, that He sees you, that He loves you so very much. But God isn’t a 3-hour visit, and His love doesn’t come in fleeting moments leaving you cold and alone in your bunk bed after the sun has set, never to be seen again. He spans the breadth of time, He’s dependent and reliable, He’s trustworthy and sure, and all of us who come to where you are and stay but a moment, well, we aren’t.

I look at your older “brothers” and I see how they hold themselves back. They smile and they sing, but there’s a guarded look to their eye, and they don’t come seeking affection or grab hands and hold tight. I wonder if they feel as though they’ve gotten too old for all of this, that they know that this type of attention is for just a moment, and it really isn’t worth trying to put themselves out there anymore.

So, I return home and I worry. I try and figure out if I did any good in your life, or if I was nothing more than a tourist to your tragedy. I worry that my own children that I have yet to meet will think that there is nothing special about affection, it can be handed out to anyone who smiles their way, and that they too will be confused about relationships. I press a little harder into God that He will help me rebuild their walls, piece by piece, that they will know that I am not just a visitor in their life, I’m here to stay.

And I pray for you too, sweet boy. I pray for that bright, beautiful smile and those eyes that snared me in an instant. I pray that they stay soft, that your edges don’t become brittle as you grow up without a mother and father to call your own. I pray that God sends you someone who plants roots in your life, who teaches you family and trust and gives you hope.

I pray for your future, that you become a believer, a brother in Christ, a provider, a husband, a father, a servant. I pray that others will pray for you too, for all the many lives just like yours. Oh, that we would put you first, that we would do what was best for you.

Three times I have stepped across your doorstep, and maybe I will again. Keep shining like the Haitian sun, child, God sees you each and every day.

Love,

Me