Diamonds in the rough

My wife first met Will at my daughter’s 1st grade class Easter egg hunt. Any time you get several dozen seven and eight year olds together you're going to have chaos. This hunt was no exception. Kids were everywhere scrambling for Easter eggs. In all the action one little girl was knocked down, her basket spilling eggs on the ground all around her. She was sitting alone on the ground, crying, and trying to pick her eggs up before other kids snatched them up for themselves. In a moment when every other child was trying to get as much as they could find; one little boy dropped his basket and rushed to help her, and calm her tears. Before my wife could get there, the little boy had worked frantically to get all the spilled candy back into her basket, the whole time pleading with her “Don’t cry, I’ll help, don’t cry.”

Later on, my wife was commenting to my daughter’s teacher, how kind the little boy had acted. The teacher replied that little Will (not his real name), was an amazingly compassionate boy considering the “environment” he lived in. Then, realizing what she had just said, she quickly excused herself.

A week later my daughter informed us that Will had told her that the police had come to his house the previous night. Before they came in, his Mommy had told him to lie, but when the police officer asked him to tell the truth, he did. What he told the officer, I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know. Will did tell my daughter that he and his 3 year-old-brother were staying with a new family now.

I keep thinking of how fast he came to the aid of the little girl at the egg hunt, how concerned he was that she not cry; how he had tried to take care of her. I wonder how many times he had to take care of his little brother like that at home.

You can learn a lot from a child. A seven-year-old knows the basic truths. You help others. You don’t lie. You give comfort to those who need it. The amazing thing about this one little boy is that; himself, seemingly deprived of all these, still knew how to shine.

People spend millions of dollars on self help books, tapes, and seminars. We argue that our faults are not ours; we’re a product of how others treat us. We go the ends of the earth to find our purpose, and search for the meaning of God’s will.

God’s Will, is on a playground helping another child with her Easter basket.

Sometimes that may be as far as we need to look.