The Boy in the Blanket
God’s Love Found Its Way Into My Brokenness
BY: LESLIE KOWALSKI
You wouldn’t call my childhood the happiest one a person could have. Growing up in a tiny, run-down house as the tenth of twelve children—with parents who struggled with mental health issues—I certainly learned about the fear of God. But I didn’t know how much God loved me. We were very poor, and we rarely had enough food. My father would sometimes shoot squirrels from out of the bathroom window so that we could eat, and other days we would crawl through grocery store dumpsters looking for food. We didn’t have any blankets, so in the winter we put our legs through the sleeves of moth-eaten coats.
It was a hard life, but things began to change when, at twelve years old, I started babysitting for my oldest sister. She and her husband were Catholic, and I would attend Mass with the family. I could feel the presence of God in that church. My faith kept growing through marriage, the loss of a child, my first husband’s suicide, and my remarriage a few years later. In my later years, I became involved in many ministries. For a long time, in fact, I ministered to other people’s needs, but I still could not sense God’s love in my heart. Shame over my upbringing and my struggles kept me from reaching out and asking for his help.
Then came the mission trip.
A “Garbage Dump” Mass
There were fourteen of us from several different countries on this trip to Mexico City. We had come together to bring aid and comfort to families living in the city’s basurero (garbage dump) and to the children at an orphanage called Casa Hogar La Divina Providencia.
As our bus made its way down the rough and rutted trails of the dump, we passed makeshift homes constructed of tacked-together tarps, plastic sheeting, corrugated steel, and discarded concrete. In the midst of the four square miles of garbage mounds, I saw small children playing as adults sifted through the trash while carrying huge bags of recyclables on their heads.
As I got off the bus, I expected to see only disheartened faces in this place of misery. But to my surprise, the people greeted me with nothing but smiles. They hugged us, and the little children asked us to bend down so that they could kiss our cheeks. I was startled but intrigued by their joy.
Later I discovered that the people had sifted through refuse for tiles, cement blocks, doors, rugs, and statues—even a large crucifix—and built a small chapel where they could worship. The priest who accompanied us celebrated Mass and blessed them with holy water using a discarded yogurt pail and a plastic rose.
As we handed out food, water, clothing, and blankets, doctors examined dozens of people, and the younger members of our team played with the children. Gradually, a number of the adults introduced their families to me. I had no special skills or talents to offer. All I could do was love them. But for whatever love and comfort I could give, it was returned manifold to me. It was they who loved me, just as I was.
His Love Reaches Me
At the orphanage, there were more than two hundred children of all ages, many of whom were mentally disabled. I happened upon one of these children—a boy of about eleven years old. While the other children were singing and playing with the rest of the missionaries, I noticed him with his back to us, covered in a black blanket.
I felt drawn to get closer to him and saw a gap of only a few inches between the blanket and the wall. Inside the blanket, I could just make out his hand. I sensed a voice inside me saying, “Touch him.” Very slowly I reached into the opening and felt his fingers. He was reluctant at first, but gently took my hand. I bent down and sang softly to him. He pulled the cover back—just a little so that I could barely see his face, and all the while he kept holding my hand.
In that moment, I realized that I was not so different from that boy in the blanket. Jesus wanted to reach into my brokenness and touch me too. As insignificant as I felt, he was always reaching out to me with his love.
A New Purpose
Jesus’ love touched me that day in the orphanage. He told me that as unworthy as I may believe myself to be, he loves me where I am and for who I am, and he always has. I may try to hide behind the blanket of my fears and my past, but he is still with me, waiting for me to reach out and take his hand. He is eager to bend down and speak to me—even to sing softly to me! His love isn’t just for everyone else. It includes me. In that moment, I saw myself in that boy, tentatively accepting God’s love.
Since that day, I’ve become kinder and more compassionate, not only toward the people around me, but also toward myself. I’m learning to rely on Jesus more as I reach out to people experiencing brokenness. I especially feel drawn to minister to people struggling with drug and alcohol addictions and to those with mental and physical disabilities because the world treats them as the most unlovable and as “less than” everybody else. But when I encounter them, I don’t see failure; I see their need for love, and I try to love them as God loves me.
Free to Love
I now know that my past does not define me and that I’m exactly who God created me to be. I’m no longer on the outside looking in at people who are joyful and free. Jesus is with me, and in a personal way. Sometimes the situations of the people I pray for are so dire that I can’t lift them out of their circumstances. But that doesn’t keep me from reaching into the situation and walking in love through it with them—if only for a little while.
Leslie Kowalski is a mother of two and grandmother of nine. She and her husband live in rural Michigan.