“Begone with you! Get out from
under my feet! Useless brat, you’re always in my way!”
These shouts, and more
besides, which she didn’t stop to hear, pursued her down the street as she fled
from the home she shared with her father and stepmother and her stepmother’s
two very young children. It was always the same these days. Since her father
had remarried she was constantly told that she was a “useless lump of a girl”,
and “no help to anyone.” She tried hard to be a help, she really did, rocking
the babies when they cried, fetching things she was asked to fetch, but
somehow, the minute she felt her stepmother’s eye upon her, it would suddenly
turn into disaster – something would be dropped or spilled or knocked over, and
it was all her fault. She never seemed to get things right, and was obviously a
bitter burden to the woman who was her new mother. Gone were the long days
playing in the streets with her friends, or the gentle lessons with her mother;
her mother had caught a sudden fever and died within two days, and, after a
period of desolation, her father had been talked into another marriage. She
felt like she had lost both her parents, since her father seemed to drift along
these days like an empty man, and hardly seemed to notice her existence.
But there was bustle and
hurrying in the village this afternoon. She had no idea what was happening, but
she followed the crowd to find out. Any excitement was better than sitting down
in the dust feeling sorry for herself. She had learned the hard way that it was
better not to ask adults too many questions. That only led to being noticed
when she didn’t want to be. So she listened hard and learned that somebody
called Jesus was just down the road and people were going out to meet him. She
had no idea who he was, but figured he must be someone important if half the
village thought it worth stopping their daily work to see him. She noticed some
of the mothers snatching up their littlest children and taking them along. She
trailed after them, keeping out of the way as best she could, but making sure
she didn’t get left behind.
But it seemed it was all for
nothing. When they reached the crowd up ahead and some of the women rushed
forward with their babies, as if they specially wanted the man to see their
small children (why?), a group of burly fishermen stepped forward and told them,
quite roughly, to go away and leave the master in peace. He had better things
to do than be bothered with a bunch of little kids!
It all felt so horribly
familiar that she felt the tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. She was
about to wipe them away with her grubby hands when another voice cut through,
and the crowd was suddenly silent. She would spend the rest of her life
wondering whether that voice was heartbreakingly sad or so full of joy that it
felt like the very stars were skipping. Maybe there was a place where deep pain
and deep joy met together? “Let the children come,’ he said, “and don’t try to
stop them. The Kingdom of God belongs to ones like these.”
