A BROKEN LAMB

While I was working for an international AID organisation, the overwhelming exposure to poverty, pain, putrid conditions and hideous cruelty had me wanting to turn a blind eye and walk away – pretend it didn’t exist.

But, then, unexpectedly, an angel would turn up.

The most beautiful one I ever met was on the Cape flats – a little ‘Coloured’ (mixed race) girl whom I called Michelle in the original story that I wrote for the agency.

Her little bushy pigtails showed someone had cared enough, for a while at least, to dress her hair sometime in the not too distant past.

The rags she wore were as filthy as she. A club foot,  ruined face – eyes too wide apart, flattened nose, cleft palate – and the worst, urine trickling uncontrolled down her misshapen little legs. How raw and burnt she must have been, this ruined angel.

She was sitting on the pavement with her feet in the gutter along with three other urchins when we got out of the vehicle. But, she was the one who got up, hobbled towards me and tried to smile a greeting.

There was one last lollipop in my pocket. I unwrapped it and handed it to her. Her eyes lit up with delighted surprise as she thanked me wordlessly. Then, she crossed to the other little urchins and gave each a lick first before savouring the rare treat herself.

For a brief moment our Creator and Saviour let me see with His eyes and I understood why He still has patience with us – it’s because of His special lambs.