I still have a stain on my favorite tie-dye shirt from where I wiped the blood off of Angel’s arm. The sun shaped stain reminds me of the smoldering days in the smelly streets of the Dominican Republic where Angel and I would spend an hour just throwing a tennis ball back and forth. One day as we did just that he was running through the field where the kids played and tripped on some trash slicing his arm open on a broken bottle. I hurried to him and held him in my lap. I wiped his tears with my sweaty bandana and used my shirt, the cleanest thing I could find, to wipe his arm. He sat in my arms as he stopped crying and when I dried the last crocodile tear from his cute cheek he ran to go play again with the other kids.
Angel was my favorite. there was no doubt about it. Every morning on our 45 minute walk to ministry I looked forward to his smile and to the silent hours we would spend playing in the trash and weeds.
As he walked away from my arms that day I watched him stoop down and pick up part of an old condom wrapper to wipe the rest of the dry blood off his arm. I just stayed there on the stoop watching him with my own crocodile tears starting to form. I hated that this was where he had to live. I hated the socioeconomic and geographical separation between us.
It’s been one year since that moment. But two days ago I found another small child needing to be held in their Father’s arms.
I was sitting AT MY NEW DESK! at AIM! Loving every minute of it! I was sitting there setting up my new work station just laughing with these new friends and joying with the Lord. As I sat my last folder on my desk I got a paper cut! I slipped to the bathroom to run my finger under the sink. I felt the sting of the Hot water in my knee caps! How can this little cut hurt so much I thought!?
and then gently and sweetly I heard a whispering voice in my ear.
“Sometimes I don’t stop the cuts of this world so I can clean you up, and hold you in my arms.”
I closed my eyes. I was crying. I’m not a cryer. I tried to pull it together, after all it was only a damn paper cut, and here I was crying in the ladies room! What if one of my new colleagues came in and saw me.
and then there it was again gently and sweetly a soft whisper in my ear.
“This is just for you and me, there is no shame in my arms, I love you.”
I held my breath. I was being silly, why was I letting this paper cut get to me.
a whisper. “stop.”
So I did. I stopped trying to make my life simple. To make it about paper cuts. I let the Lord use that moment to speak to me. and when I did, I remembered Angel and how much I loved joying with him the same way I loved holding him in my arms. I remembered how much I grieved where he had to be, and how much I wanted to make it better for him, yet all I could do was LOVE.
I was Angel. God delights in my smiles and my tears. I am His favorite and He is eager for the time we get with each other. He hates to see me wipe my wounds with the things of this world yet doesn’t just want me broken in His arms. He wants me running free and laughing. Just not here with all this separation, He wants me to be where He is.
Whether it’s a field in the Dominican or in Georgia He is at work.
