A beautiful story.. enjoy... taken from some book or devotional material (forget which one hehe)
We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat Josh in a highchair. Suddently Josh squealed and said, "Hi there". He pounded his hands on the high-chair tray and wriggled and giggled with merriment. I looked around and saw the source of his merriment. It was a man with a tattered rag of a coat, dirty, greasy and worn. His pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast and his toes poked out of would-be shoes. His shrit was dirty and his hair uncombed and unwashed. His whiskers were too short to be called a beard and his nose was so varicosed it looked like a road map. We were too far from him to smell him, but I was sure he smelled. His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists.
"Hi there, baby. I see ya, buster," the man said to Josh. My husband and I exchanged looks that said, "What do we do?" Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man. The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. Our meal came, and the man began shouting across the room, "Do ya know patty-cake? Do ya know peekaboo? Hey, look, he knows peekaboo."
Nobody thought the old man was cute. He wa obviously drunk, My husband and I were embarrased. We ate in silence, all except for Josh, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skidrow bum who in turn recipracated with his cute comments.
We finally got through the meal and headed for the door. My husband went to pay tge check and told me to meet him in the parking lot. The old man sat poised between me and the door. "Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Josh," I prayed. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to side-step him and avoid any air he might be breathing. As I did, Josh leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms and in a baby's pick-me-up position. Before I could stop him, Josh had prapelled himself from my arms to the man's.
Suddently a very smelly old man and a very young baby consummated their love relationship. Josh, in an act of total trust, love and submission laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands, full of grime, pain and hard labour, gently, so gently cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back. No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time. I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Josh in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, "You take care of this baby." Somehow I managed to say "I will," from a throat that contained a stone. He pried Josh from his chest unwillingly, lovingly, as though he were in pain. I received my baby, and the man said, "God bless you, ma'am, you've just given me my Christmas gift." I said nothing more than a muttered thanks.
With Josh in my arms, I ran for the car. My husband was wondering why I was crying and holding Josh so tightly, and I was saying, "My God, my God forgive me." I had just witnessed Christ's love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgement... a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes. I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who was not. I felt it was God asking, " Are you willing to share your son for a moment?" when He shared His for eternity. The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me that to enter the kingdom of God, we must become as little children...
"Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:14-15...
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