There's this dreamy and quaint little town. The town you see in that romantic movie. A pizza parlor across the street from an ice cream store. The soccer field rests down the street next to the firehouse and a family owned laundromat. Children are riding bicycles in the streets and others are giggling as they walk home from school. On Sundays in this picturesque town, boys are playing soccer and fishing in the river before the bridge. It is smiles and hugs. Love and laughter.
In the very center of this town, one road back from Main Street, there is a bar. An old brown building, with dirty windows and regulars stumbling in and out. If you go to the side of the building, you see a charcoal grill sitting on the ledge of the second story apartment. It's the home of two little boys who became caretakers to their father, quickly withering away to illness.

Two and a half years ago. That was then.

Two days ago, I drove back through that town. Past the apple orchard, past the barn on the right, and over the bridge, into a town that now smelled of nostalgia and six years of memories. Stopping in front of the pizza parlor, I looked at the ice cream store.
Memories flooded.
"DJ, make sure you get your dad an ice cream sundae too," mom yelled at him as he ran into the store to get soft serve butterscotch ice cream after food shopping. A treat for the week. And a taste of childhood, after not having slept, because his father required his care.
On the corner is the pharmacy, a sight that caused my eyes to fight tears.
Memories flooded.
"Go in and buy a comb and deodarant," mom yelled as we stopped along the corner of the street. Graduating from elementary school, nobody had taught him proper hygiene, and he lacked a brush and deodarant to mask the smell of a pubescent boy.
I took a quick left, and in front of me sat that old brown building. New blinds in the windows, it was vacant. I looked up to the second story, to find that the charcoal grill gone.
Memories flooded.
Two and a half years later. Finally gone.

Two and a half years ago, those two little boys said goodbye to their father over a closed casket, as their mother, who had abandoned them eight years earlier, whisked them off to a new life and a new start, without settling their past. That home and that town. That was the past. Soccer. That was the past. Butterscotch ice cream and food shopping. That was the past.
The family that cared for them as their father grew ill. That was the past.

But two days ago, the past became the present. The pizza parlor I stared at from across the street, I soon sat inside. Across from me sat a 5' 10'' fifteen year old boy with a shaved head and the voice of a man, who was once a 5' twelve year old, clinging to my neck, begging to take a bath instead of a shower. A fifteen year old who doesn't know Jesus, but knows deep down that the love he has been shown is more than flesh can give.
And next to me sat a 5' almost thirteen year old boy who giggled at everything and repeated the same sentences, still ADHD, and still the same boy who at ten, rode on my back as we caught fireflies late at night. A near thirteen year old boy who doesn't know Jesus, and is fighting a defeated battle that is tormenting his sweet spirit.


Two years ago I was praying that they would come back, not knowing Jesus myself. I was praying out of selfishness, believing that they were meant to be my brothers. Two days ago, I found myself praying the same selfish prayer. But He stopped me in my prayer as I held them both curbside, wishing to take them home with me. "I did not leave you for the 99. Nor will I leave them. I've provided, am providing, and will continue to provide, because this is my burden that I sacrificed for at the cross."

Knowing that He sweeps us in His arms, one by one, is one of the sweetest promises. He didn't discriminate because we were once dirty and unclean. As I looked at Bobby, the scars on his arms, and his dirty clothes, I saw Jesus behind the childrens glasses that set the small framed boy apart. His ears that he never quite grew into were dirty, and He said, "Yes, I love that too." He loves our dirtiness, especially that which comes from our willingness to submit to such innocence.
And so as I shed tears once made for mourning, I lay these burdens back at the cross. I lay my desire to be what they need back down, and let Him pick up the pieces. Because only He can mend the pieces of a once broken child into a whole hearted man.
Like the brown building they once called home, He will take them out of the darkness and show them the light. One layer. One touch. One embrace. One memory. One butterscotch ice cream at a time.