Found...if only temporarily

My lost sheep came home this week.  I know that Heaven was rejoicing.  He was so lost, and then he was home.  It only lasted 2 days, but I have hope that he will come back again.  The first day he came home, he talked more than he ever had.  Before, whenever I asked him a question, he would start to answer and then stop mid-sentence before really saying anything and say “let’s leave that conversation” or “be easy”.  But Thursday, he talked.  A lot.  I think that he just needed someone to hear him that day.  

To be known. 

To be heard. 

This life has taken these boys’ voices.  It has silenced them and told them they don’t matter.   They just internalize everything and keep it on their hearts.  Soon, the lies they tell themselves are louder than the lies the world has told them.  They don’t know anymore that God made them perfectly.  They don’t know that they are destined for great things.  They don’t know how loved they really are.  They don’t know that they are worth more than all of the gold in the world.

This world has stolen so much from them.  They have had to make choices no one should make, let alone a child.  When they should have been in school, or playing soccer and other games with friends, they were on the streets deciding if they wanted to stay kind, innocent, and pure, or if they wanted to survive.  Is it any wonder that they hate the world?  It robbed them of so much:  of their goodness, of their soul.  It took my lost sheep and so many others, so far away, believing that they aren’t good or lovable.  No matter how many times I say it, it is never believed, because this life has told them differently too many times.  They are beat, shot at, abused, insulted, and taken advantage of.  

Why?  

For what?  

Telling him I love him, that God loves him, every second of everyday would still not be enough times to erase how many times this world has shown him that his life doesn’t matter.  So I said goodbye again last night, appreciating the 2 days I had with him, praying that God would continue to keep him safe, and hating those that broke him almost beyond repair.

I know there is nothing I can do, but I still have hope.  And I am clinging desperately to it.  I know God hears my prayers every night for him and that’s why I can still see him and tell him I love him.  I know God will hear my prayers to shout louder and drown out the lies he hears.  I know truth and love will finally win.  Because it always does.   It is just taking a little longer this time…

I hope you will join me in my prayers, so my lost sheep will be found for good.