The Black Eyed, Four-Year-Old and How Our “Holes” Can Be Made “Whole”

“Do you have a pair of socks I can borrow? Size four.” A preschool-aged boy sits in the entry of our door, sheepishly looking up at me, soaked with shame in his eyes.

One black sock, another white. A hole so large, his feet freeze right through, this cold fall night.

Frost blanketing his life. His black eye shows me he’s not unfamiliar with forecasts of winter in sight.

A stained shirt, no coat, the same high-water jeans he wore last time. Still, his lack seems far more than external.

I look down at him and smile, because true love is never conditional.

At the same time, I’m taken back. My mind starts reeling at the thought that a parent might send him here with two filthy, unmatched socks, large holes hidden within his shoes…

And I have to wonder…is his soul too…With holes?

But then, I think of how many “holes” we can hide too. Good Christian’s pretending to be pious, walking around in shoes that aren’t their size, harboring holes we can’t bare to share, afraid to lift our eyes upward so He might meet our need.

And I wonder why we can’t dangle our toes, take off what hides our weakness? Look up at the world, with confidence in our inwards conditions…

And what if we too could be like the innocent, looking up, revealing to Him our weakness. Asking, “Lord, I need _____”?

Do we think He would turn us away?

Can’t we be like this four year-old, exposing where we have tread to the world, honestly showing our “holes” and our hurt, so Our Healer can come close, and save us?

And maybe our holes are not deficits, but a vehicles God uses so we’ll seek Him…so He can make us whole?

And might we all be like Paul, boasting at our faults, proclaiming our weakness, so that we might walk in His strength.

For aren’t our holes a magnet to grace? A place the holes in His hands and side meets ours? Where His blood washes over us and makes us all clean?

The little boy sits, dangling his filthy, white, brownish, too small, holey sock. And my mind flashes fast to my daughter’s closet. Nice clothes full of colors overflowing to the brim.

And it’s the holidays. A time we talk generosity. But I wonder if we live like the wise men, giving small trinkets of our wealth…instead of living like Jesus, who left it all…to die humbly to himself so others might live?

It was nearly a year ago, we got word of these children. Just before Christmas, their mother asked us to take them.

I thought it was a joke. Who gives their children away just before the holidays?

Finally, a year of prodding and persisting humbled me to seek His will, opening scripture to where the blind man begs Our Savior for healing.

The crowds don’t see him, want him. They shush him as if he is not significant enough to “get” his healing.

Did they really expect him to be happy, content, pleased somehow with being blind and having to beg for money the rest of his existence?

And how many of us are blind in one form or other and have let the crowds, “Shhhh” us, or silence us into contentment…when His ears are never deaf to someone’s desperate cry for healing?

How many of us look good on the outside, but inside yearn so fervently; are like the one climbing up their trees of desperation, like Zaccheus, insisting there is more? Just hoping to get a glimpse of Jesus?

Why have we let society pacify us from sincere desperation for a God who can heal?

And yet, when others come to us with needs; real, tangible, practical needs, it seems we can either: Talk about the gospel, or be doers of the word. 

Tears stream after meeting the mom for the first time. A church goer and destitute one, finding a God-thread between us that legalistic religion, or doctrine alone could never have created.

Some people, God places grace, like a bridge, between them….and we are called to walk over it in dependence…

And as I pray this morning, I hear His Word, “I came to seek and save the lost. It’s the reason that I came.”

And yet, the invisible in our society are often forgotten on the holidays. We want Pinterest perfect lives, houses and families that look like advertisements….more than grace healed, God reflections of heaven here on earth. Why is that?

And why was Jesus accused of conversing with sinners, dining and “hanging out” with those the religious wouldn’t get near? Why did he allow the woman with the Alabaster Jar to crash the party of the so-called righteous?

Is it because He knew the weak must blend with the strong, the broken must touch of His perfect cloak? Is it that while we draw lines, and barriers, create divisions, and walls in a culture of “us vs. them”…

There are no lines in His eyes, only people He loves and created all equally.

The Great Physician came for the sick, not for the well, didn’t He?

That little boy hugged me tight and wouldn’t let go, when I handed him a clean, over-sized pair of socks, and let his sister where one of my coats.

I don’t know what the future holds for these children. But what I do know, is that I never want to go pretending I don’t see the broken.

For, isn’t religion a waste if we become blind to others needs, so caught up in our own “right-ness” that we miss what His blood was shed for…the reason this season brought a babe in a manger…a ransom for many….a ransom for all who will seek Him in humility?

I bought that little boy a pair of socks today.

How could I not. I see Him sitting in a circle, surrounded by children from all over the world. His loving whisper drenches my soul as His voice rings loud and clear…

“Let them come to me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” ~ Mark 19:14