The Wanted One

There was once a little boy and every day he got up and he would go to school...he would sit at his desk and listen to what the teacher was saying, he would then bow his head and he would write the homework assignment down and do as much of it in class as he could. He would then go to lunch with the other kids but he was different because he wasn't allowed to sit with the other kids. They didn't want him at their table. In fact, most of the time, the little boy thought they didn't want him at their school at all. He was shy, he was different, he wasn't "right" and his intelligence and straight A average made him the teacher's pet and therefore the class "geek."

After school, when he would go home, nothing much was different because he wasn't wanted at home either. He wasn't the son that his father had always prayed for, had always wanted and his father told him so every day, every night he came home. Sometimes he used his whip to reinforce his message that the little boy was nothing but a punishment from God and that nothing he ever did or was going to do would ever be worth anything. The little boy would try to make his father proud, by showing him his straight As but the father would get angry that the boy was wasting his time on "girlish" things, like grades and caring about what the teachers thought of him and he would lash out at the boy again, and again and again until the little boy was lying on the ground with bruises and welts and painful scars on his back and his hands.

He wasn't wanted at home.
He wasn't wanted at school.

But he was wanted. He was wanted by the little, dark haired, dark eyed sister that hid behind the couches when his father was angry. He was wanted by her. She thought he had hung the moon, and every night, after their father tired of beating the spirit out of his son, the sister, who was two years younger than the boy, would bring a washcloth up to him and gently touch his welts and wipe the blood away. She would sing to him in quiet tones and would hug him and then, after the cuts had been washed and the tears in the boy's eyes had finally fallen, she would lay down beside him on the floor, and wrap her arms around his waist. It was then..it was always then that the little boy would realize that the wetness on his shirt wasn't coming just from his tears but from her tears too. And so they would lay there, holding each other close and they would cry together for the innocence that was being beaten out of them both.

In the light of day, after the tears dried and the bruises healed, the boy and the girl never spoke of it. Often times the little boy wanted to thank his sister for all that she gave to him, for all that she did for him, but he could never find the words...and he didn't feel worthy to talk to her in daylight because he knew she had to have come directly from heaven, and how was one supposed to talk to an angel, who came in the formation of a little girl? So the words "thank you" were never spoken.

But on the first night that their daddy went to the little girl's room to hurt her instead of the boy, the boy was there, hitting his father on the face and on the back, knowing the punishment that he would receive for doing so. He was right. The plan worked. The father became so angry that he hit the boy and hit him again and again and he used his belt this time because his whip hadn't been brought in. The boy was thrown across the room and his head hit the wall. The father's anger at having been attacked by his own son wouldn't fade, it wouldn't go away, and so he kept hitting the boy, ignoring the little girl's screams for him to stop...stop...stop...

The little boy got scared when the light when out and he was surrounded momentarily by blackness. Nothing was around him, until suddenly he saw a beautiful, bright light and a man was standing there. He had black hair and a beard and he was smiling. He wore a white robe and sandals were on his feet. The man walked closer to the boy until finally, he stopped. The man and the boy looked at each other for a long moment before finally the man stretched out his hand to the boy. Holes were in the man's hands.

"I know," the man said. "I know you're hurting now. I know what that whip feels like. No more, my child. No more. Come with me. Come with me."

The boy didn't understand. "You - but you're Jesus."

"Yes."

"And you want ME to come with you? Me?"

Jesus smiled. "Yes, little one. Yes. I love you, just like your sister does."

The boy's eyes filled with tears and he looked over his shoulder as if he could see his sister, the lovely young girl he loved, the angel from the place Jesus now wanted to take him.

"What will happen to her? I can't leave her."

"She'll be okay. She has a long life ahead of her, a happy life. She won't ever experience what you did because you stopped it. She is going to live with a family who loves her."

"She is?"

"Yes. She wants you to be happy, too. Come with me home now."

The boy looked beyond Jesus into the bright light from which this loving man had come. "To heaven? I don't belong."

"Oh, my child." Tears filled Jesus's eyes and He reached over and hugged the boy. The boy had never felt such warmth and peace fill him as he did then. He did not want to let Jesus go. Jesus framed the boy's face and smiled through the tears. "My child, it was for you heaven was made." And with that, He took the boy's hand and led him into the warm light. Now, whereve the boy goes, whatever he does, he is always wanted and he rests in peace, too, in the arms of the One who made him, and who promised him his beautiful sister was happy and loved on earth.