This morning I met a little boy who's maybe four or five. He told me his name, and then identified his caregiver, sitting nearby. He said, "I'm her new boy. She just got me today." And from the environment we were in, I knew he meant that this lady was his brand-new foster parent. And then he said this: "I'm the one with all the bruises."
Can somebody tell me how to live in this world, where a child identifies himself as the one with all the bruises?
Because in moments like that, I just get lost. In the hurt and the pain and the absolute senseless evil that is the abuse of a child. There is no way to make it OK in my head.
And so we do what Anne Lamott says. We "take the tenderest possible care" of the little one with all the bruises.
And then I go home and cry and pray. My husband brings me flowers.
And I listen to some Mumford and Sons.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kS8RTRi7HA]
"I fell heavy into your arms."
Waiting. Grieving.
That's the only way I know how to live in the world today.