Trash in color

Someone handed trash to me this morning.  It was black and white.  It didn't smell badly, and it was clean and crisp, not crumpled up like you'd expect trash to be.  I get people's trash every day.  Sometimes it is emailed to me, sometimes I get it through the phone, often I get it through faxes.  I'm pretty used to getting trash, and deciding what to do with it.

But it doesn't usually feel like trash.

This one did.  This one, a fax handed to me at 8:15 in the morning, felt like I had been handed trash in black and white.

Loves legos, has PTSD.

Loves going to church, hasn't been to the dentist in a long time.

Loves country music, lies to care-givers.

Likes to be involved with family activities, hoards food.

Draws for hours, might be ADHD.

How in the world had this child turned into someone's trash?  Who tortured him and then decided they didn't want to deal with the fall-out?  Who neglected him to the point that he still feels like he needs to hide food so that he can feel safe and have a back-up for when he expects food to disappear from the house at the end of the month?  Who could do that?

I emailed his case worker.  She agreed.  Sometimes, other people's trash touches a special place in your heart, and this little guy did that to both of us.  Sometimes your callous just can't save you this time from an overpowering anger and feeling of helplessness.

A few hours later, I again got handed some else's trash.  This time though, I got to meet and spend time with the people who were responsible, and I cried with them as they told their heartbreaking story.   A story I could identify with.  I wanted to wrap my arms around them and say, I'm standing with you, let's turn this thing around.  One parent just glared at me as I tried to sympathize, lost in her own grief.  The other didn't want to connect, as I tried to encourage him.  After a couple of hours, they handed off two of their many pieces of trash jewels.  The jewels were trembling, crying.  Red eyes and sweaty foreheads looked up at me.  Bundled up in their winter coats that had been lovingly zipped to the top.  I bent my knees and sat on my haunches.  I touched one, "Can I hold your hand?"  A tear fell.  I offered some completely useless gibberish about how their parents love them, and they will get to spend some time with a great family.  I took their hands.  This trash in living, breathing color.  These jewels with their runny noses, clumsy feet, and terrified eyes.  We slowly walk down two dim, long hallways.  We meet the family they will be moved to.  They are brave.  We walk down a long flight of stairs.  And they are brave.  We walk out into an icy wind, out to a new car.  And they are brave.  I strap one in, and they begin chatting about their favorite super hero's.  They are brave.  They ride off to their new home.  They are brave.

I am not brave.

But at the end of the day, as I leaned into my husband and let the anger and helplessness seep back out of my pores- I was reminded.  They are in Jesus' hands.  Jesus turns trash into treasure.  Jesus can turn ANY trash into the most beautiful creature.  It's not my job to put every piece of trash into a loving home, because I can't.  And I would go mad trying.

Tonight two jewels will sleep with two new matching teddy bears, warm and cuddly.  The other, the one I only saw in black and white, I don't know.  Will you join me in praying that he is led to his forever home soon?  Will you ask that God touches a Christian foster home and pricks their hearts towards him?  His family is out there, he BELONGS to someone, he just needs the way home lit up for him.