Wednesday, March 27, 2013
The Heart of A Child
I have a friend who is around 30 years old. He is tall and strong and healthy. His mind is about the age of the boy in this picture. He has enthusiasm for life. He loves the world of t.v. wrestling and does the chicken dance when prompted. He mows yards and, if given the slightest encouragement, cheerfully digs trenches that he calls "edging" around the yards. He works out at the gym with a truly wonderful adult friend and shows me his muscles when I ask him. He plays in the pool with the children and needs to be reminded that he is strong and boisterous so "chill it". He cries and believes if anyone around him is angry that he caused the anger and he gets confused and lost and calls me on the phone and asks me to pray for him. He loves to go to the dances held for people like him and constantly has one girl or the other on his mind. He cannot follow more than one direction at a time and even then may get confused but he literally runs to my mother's house when she calls him to help her take in her groceries and gives him $2.00 and praises him. Jesus loved little children. He loves my friend. I told someone recently that my friend has an "olly olly in free" card to heaven. He is innocent and frequently influenced by others. He has to move with the people who have custody of him. He has to move to Missouri and he has cried and he arranged to stay here with a family that was willing to care for him but that fell through so he is moving in April. He was standing outside with the friend who takes him to the gym a couple of nights ago. He was holding two tiny teddy bears close to him and his eyes were big and he was hurting. He wants to please everyone and, sadly enough, people do not seem to feel his angst. He can be difficult to manage and take care of on a daily basis. He is a man with the mind of a young child and the yearning for things that he cannot have in this life. It is easy to lose patience with him at times easy to forget that he is so very young in that tall, lean body. So he stood in the cold night and I talked to him about God and his friend talked to him about not being to blame for other people's reactions and worked at helping him understand that he has not done anything wrong. He began to cry and I held him close and told him how much we love him and how much God loves him. He is afraid. Soon he will be in Missouri and soon after that he will have a life going on that he enjoys. He loves people. Not too long after he moves he will remember us in some ways and forget us in others. He will tell stories about his time here that are kinda/sorta like what happened. He will, for sure, embellish and build his own memories from the real memories. He is, after all, a child. I will miss him so much. It isn't often that we get to be in the life of a man like my friend. The picture I posted reminds me of him. Innocent. Joyous. Uninhibited. I could just as well have posted a picture of a worried little boy with his knees drawn up to his chest and tears on his cheeks for that is also my friend. But, God does love him so and we love him. He brought me joy and taught me his version of the chicken dance and chased me around to try to tickle me and drove me absolutely crazy at times. For this I am grateful and I am sad to see him go. God blesses us in mysterious ways and through people we never dreamed would come our way. I thank God for my friend and what he has given me.
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