“Red and yellow, black and blue….”
My three year old granddaughter was holding her newborn brother for the first time. We were taking cute shot after cuter shot, when she stopped “saying cheese” for us and looked into her tiny brother’s face.
Giving him a sweet little-mom smile she started softly singing, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children in the world, Red and yellow, black and blue, they are…” Her little voice stopped, looking for words to finish. “I don’t know what the words are,” she said.
My son, her dad, did a quick rewrite and sang with her, “Red and yellow, black and blue, they are precious to Him, too. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
“Red and yellow, black and blue” makes me recall how many bruises my boys had as they grew. They both gave themselves black eyes as they learned to walk. And one of them had so many black and blue marks on his legs from learning to ride a bike, I was sure his pediatrician would look suspiciously at me. When I told him that, he assured me the bruises did not fit patterns of abuse.
We don’t want to think about how many children wear those patterns of abuse. My office in a medical center was across the hall from the emergency room, One afternoon a badly bruised four year old was brought in. Our hearts broke when he died. Red and yellow, black and blue, they are precious to him, too.
I know an EMT who was called to revive a 3 month old who had been thrown against a wall. I know a teacher whose middle school student was hit and pushed by his mother until he suffered a brain injury and died And I’ve seen the photos of late-term babies after abortions ended their short lives, their baby skins darkly bruised.
Black and blue, they are precious to him, too.
We can be tempted to ask God why, if he loves them, he lets these abuses happen.
I think God however asks us, why, since he values them so much, we let these abuses happen.
Every child I just mentioned was in a situation that was known to be dangerous to the child. Someone could have intervened and chose not to, for fear of their own safety or livelihood.
Black and blue in many ways, we are all broken.
My granddaughter’s sweet pose with her baby reminded me of a famous statue that moved my heart when I saw it many years ago, Michelangelo’s “Pieta.” If any mother ever held an abused and bruised child, it was Mary holding the lifeless body of Jesus.
God took on flesh and suffered with every beaten kid, thrown toddler and aborted baby. Black and blue, they are precious to him, too.
The prophet Isaiah says,”He lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain;… He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds,
crushed because of our sins;
he endured punishment that made us well;
because of his wounds we have been healed.”
Because Jesus rose from death I know that, in the end, there will be justice for every abused child. But there is also forgiveness offered for every abuser and every bystander who watched in silence. Everyone who wants to be healed, will be.
“Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world. Red, brown, yellow, black and blue, they are precious to him, too. Jesus died for all the children of the world.”
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Scriptures: Isaiah 53:4-5 (NET )
Hope Walking 