"When you care for a child, you honor Me." - - Mark 9:37
Alejandro was barely 4 when his family broke apart. His schizophrenic mother couldn't care for the kids; prison walls now protected him from a violent father. He’s still tormented by unspeakable memories of both. So when he woke up in the hospital bruised and battered, it was good that Child Services placed all three siblings with foster parents.
Of all the foster homes he’d been in, one stood out above all the others. Alejandro couldn’t recall Bill and Eleanor’s last name, but he vividly remembered that they listened to him; they taught him. He thought the older couple may have even loved him. Too bad he couldn’t have stayed, but when cancer stole Bill’s health, Alejandro was forced to move on . . . and on . . . and so on.
Honestly, he hated some of the foster parents he’d been “tossed” to. They didn’t love him – they just liked the money that accompanied him. They were strangers - just another set of adults who had power over him, adults who expected him to be grateful. Helpless, his life laid in pieces! Even he thought of himself as shattered, damaged, broken. He often wondered what it would have been like to have experienced the security of a loving family. He wished someone had really cared about him.
His desk sat next to the teacher’s. He liked being close to her. She seemed nice.
He was silently absorbed in math homework when a stick of gum slid his way. He looked up just in time to catch his teacher’s friendly smile. Confused, he quietly opened the wrapper, popped the gum in his mouth and quickly scanned the classroom.
From what he could tell, she hadn’t given anyone else a piece. Only him! She snuck a stick of gum to him every day after that. Each day he acknowledged her with a thankful grin.
Today as a grown man, he knows what she really gave him. To her, it may have seemed like a simple piece of gum, a small token of kindness. To Alejandro, it was so much more. It was something all his own, something precious that no other kid in that room had. That little stick of gum made Alejandro feel something he had never felt before . . . special! No longer “invisible.”
She must have listened to God’s whisper – the same one that guides him today as the Foster Dad of two emotionally-scarred children, each shattered, damaged, and broken . . . for now.
O Lord, watch over Your little ones who are poor and abandoned. Gather them under Your wings, warm their tender hearts that they may too feel Your loving grace and forever enjoy Your kindness as their heavenly Parent. Amen
