When What You See Isn’t What You Get. And the Broken, Beautiful Stranger.

You never know, when a stranger will upside-down, flip your day around.  From something dreadful….to something beautiful.

Me and small one.  Walk serenely.  Into Children’s Hospital.  So humbly.  This
commonplace.  Where it is usual to see hairless ones, head-wrapped children being pushed by their parents, in wheelchairs.

Yes, this is not the place for the fainthearted, the faithless, the fearful.

Walking into this broken ward, there must be a fight.  A heart cry.  A knowing, “God is faithful”, even before you enter.  Or you will crumble.

And since deformities are normal here.  I talk to my dark-skinned, heart song.  Warning her.  Again.

“What we see on the outside, is not what God sees.  We look at what our eyes see…but God looks at our hearts.”

Yes, I want her to know.  Just like she has been judged.  With dark skin.  Afro climbing higher with each year….

A world that sees in color.  Preferring GQ, Cosmopolitan. Using “Perfect” as a barometer.
 

We go into her hearing appointment.  Her new aides.  Bringing her new found freedom.  Freedom to be.  “Normal”.

And I think about this lesson of “what you see isn’t what you get”. And I pray it applies to her too. When people. Look at the plastic around both ears.  And judge her. From the outside.

Then the audiologist says something that makes eyes swell.  Water rise from inside. Pouring out. Of a heart trying to be strong

“You know, since we still don’t know the cause of her hearing deficit.  There is still a chance your daughter could wake up one day, completely deaf in her other ear too.”

And I jumble for questions.  Answers.  Understanding.  Of a God who lets innocent ones suffer from other people’s consequences.

And I wrestle for faith.  Barely.  Holding tight, to my sparkling eyes one. Leaving the hospital.  Head held up.  Head held high.  In disguise.

Just then.  Crooked legs.  Flailing arms.  Teenager.  Runs up as if we have known him all our life.

He is bald.  With a scar starting at his forehead.  Shooting diagonal down through the back of his head.

“Your daughter is so cute.”  He starts in.  “How old are you?”  (I am a little taken back.)  “Is she adopted?”  “How many other kids do you have?”

And I need a friend in this moment.  This stranger.  This crippled man-child coming up to me.  So I stop.  Talk.  Get out of myself.  Listen.  Answer.  Put aside my own fears for a moment.

Then, the question that brings this God encounter together stumps me.  “What religion are you?”  

“I am a Christian.”  I tell Him. “I believe in Jesus.”

“Me too.”  His eyes shoot rays of light into my fading countenance. He hugs me.  As if we are family.

And I stand there.  Seeing an angel. Yes, this angel seemingly sent here.  To heal me in this moment.

Then, he goes on and shares his story.  “I was five when my mom found a tumor.”  He lifts up his shirt and shows me a scar on his stomach.  “There is one here too.  And here.”  Continually revealing different parts of his body.  Right there is the valet parking place.

And I am taken back a bit, that he is not hesitant. Or ashamed.  Or guilt ridden.  As he candidly shows the scars of his pain, to a stranger.

“Then, they found a brain tumor.” He smiles.  Pointing to the scar across his cranium.  The one staring at us as we speak.  

“Doctors said I wouldn’t live.  But Jesus is going to heal me.”

And he makes us laugh.  Shows us hand games.  Sharing Christian movie recommendations.

Yet, I am still stuck.  Stuck on those words…. “Jesus, is going to heal me.”

Still I gathered, this angels mission. This young man, with his wobbling legs and
uncontrollable arms, teetered like the tin mad throughout the hospital.  Telling jokes to the little boy, in a wheelchair we had seen earlier.  Making him laugh….this tubed nosed child with fear in his eyes earlier.

“I made him laugh so hard.  His mom too.” This God-friend shares about a stranger.

I step back.  Realizing, this joy giver, is the hope of the nations.  This “what do you believe, religion asking seeker”…..is the gospel brought to fruition. The Great Commission in action.  An evangelist, preacher, comedian, converter….all in one.  

And I leave.  Realizing, as I drive down and out into the traffic where kids are not hurt.  Dying. Deformed.  Where a world seems “perfect”…..

The weight lifted.  The weight of the doomsday prognosis of my daughter being completely deaf….has lifted.

God bringing hope. Life. Through a boy I had never met….

God teaching my daughter, the message I was trying to share with her earlier….

“What you see isn’t what you get. People are not always like they look on the outside.”  

Still, those words keep ringing through my mind…

“Jesus is going to heal me.”

Yet, as I think about that hug from a stranger.  The laughter we had in the shadow of that hospital.  The joy.  And peace.  And light that shined from a scared head boy, limping towards me….

I start to get it.  I start to think of this God of grace different.

Maybe God doesn’t always give us exactly what we ask for.

Maybe healing is much more that flawless skin.  Straight, long, skinny limbs….

• Healing is this boy.  Broken.  
• Healing is a God shining through the least of these.  The willing.  
• Healing is…..A joy.  A peace.  The grace to bless children with tubes.  Offering respites of freedom, to a wheeled one…and his crumbling mom.

Yes, this boy doesn’t need healing.  He is healed.  I think. As I drive away.

“He is healed.”  We all can be.  Whether perfect on the outside…or not!

The road.  Now long.  Leading only to swelling hearts.  Bountiful praise.  To the God of these children.  A God who doesn’t make mistakes.

Even if we think He does.  Even if we think…..

The beautiful aren’t the broken.  And Jesus can’t be found in children, less than perfect.

(Linking with Barbie, Michelle)