If God really exists, what
difference does that make to me? How does that affect my life? Do I even matter
to God?
It was easy to make fun of Luke – a head shorter
than the rest of the kids in our class, tangled hair, acne covering his face…
and the clothes he wore made him look like a walking rummage sale.
You know the kind of guy he was. When we were
hanging around talking with our friends and he came walking down the hall, we
kinda closed up the circle so he couldn’t slip in and join our group. And we
were eating in the cafeteria and he sat down at our table, we’d all remember
something “important” to do and get up – one by one – leaving him sitting there
all alone.
You know the kind of guy he was.
No one called him by his real name. We just
called him Stumpy.
At least that’s what we called him to his face.
Stumpy didn’t play any sports. He wasn’t in
drama or band or on the honor roll. He didn’t go to football games. Stumpy
managed to slip through all the cracks. He didn’t fit into any clique. Stumpy’s
only companion was this tall lanky kid whom everyone called Goose.
They always hung out together. Goose had Stumpy
sharpen his pencils, do his homework, and buy candy bars for him. In return,
Goose spent time with Stumpy. But I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on him,
because that was more than anyone else at my high school was willing to do.
Stumpy and Goose spent long afternoon in a
deserted corner of the Student Union playing cards during their lunch hour,
free time, and after school.
For the first month of school, I didn’t pay much
attention to them. But as I slid between the cliques myself, I began to spend
more and more time learning to play poker with Goose and Stumpy, watching my
afternoon slip away in the Student Union.
What I remember most about Stumpy was locking
him in a locker.
“Let
me out!”
It just
sorta happened one day. We were playing cards after school. Other than the
three of us, the room was deserted. Suddenly, Goose winked at me and mouthed
the words, “Follow my lead.” I shrugged my shoulders and nodded.
Goose stood up. “Hey, Stumpy, could
you help me get something out of my locker?”
“Sure, Goose, I guess. What do you
need?”
“Just this,” said Goose, grabbing
Stumpy by one arm. I jumped up and caught hold of his other arm.
“Hey, you guys! What are you doing?”
Stumpy muttered, beginning to get frightened.
We dragged him over to the wall of
lockers and Goose lifted the latch and threw a locker door open. We shoved
Stumpy inside and slammed the door shut. Then, we slid a pencil through the
lock so he couldn’t jimmy it open from the inside. Stumpy was trapped.
“Well, Steve, let’s go home,” said
Goose.
“Okay, Goose, let’s go,” I called
out, making sure I said it loud enough for Stumpy to hear.
“Hey, you guys, don’t leave me in
here. Lemme out!” he sounded really scared. We could hear him squirming inside
the locker, but it was no use. He was trapped.
We both pretended to leave the Student
Union, but really stood by the doorway watching and laughing. We could hear
Stumpy struggling against the locker, wiggling around.
Then we let him out. And Goose and I
laughed and told him how much fun it was and that we were just kidding around
and slapped him on the back and then we all sat down to finish the card game.
That was the first of many lock-ups.
Each time we left him there a little longer. Or banged on the sides of the
locker a little louder. Or poked stuff in those ventilation holes at the bottom
of the locker. Or pushed in the sides of the adjoining lockers to squish him.
Stumpy never struggled. He never
fought back. He never returned our insults. And when we let him out, he’d just
said, “Okay you guys, Okay you guys. Things are cool.”
“Things
were not cool”
Then
came the day in March when Goose and I were really bored. We knew that just
locking Stumpy in the locker wouldn’t be enough fun. So that day, after we
stuck him in the locker, we blew pencil shavings in the top ventilation holes
and then poured water down into the locker.
“How’s the weather in there,
Stumpy?” Goose called.
I stood there laughing so hard my
gut hurt.
“Okay, you guys. Okay, you guys,” a
muffled voice said. “Lemme out.” Finally, right before class, we let him out
and whacked him on the back and laughed.
“Just kidding around there, Stumpy,”
said Goose, gathering up his books. He headed toward the door and I turned to
get my books. And that’s when I happened to glance at Stumpy’s face.
His eyes were bloodshot. As hard as
he was trying to hide it, I could tell that not all the wetness on his face had
come from the water we’d poured down the back of the locker. And for some
reason that day didn’t look away. He just stood there. And in, that moment, I
looked into his eyes.
In that brief instant, in those sad
eyes, I saw the real Stumpy. It was as if I could peer down inside him and know
what he was feeling. And I heard the cry of his heart: Care about me. Tell me I matter. I just wished somebody would tell me I
matter.
Then he turned away, shaking. He drew one
arm across his face to dry his eyes, grabbed his books, and looked back at me
laughing a wild desperate laugh. “Okay, you guys,” he said. “Things are cool.”
But I knew things were not cool. Not
inside Stumpy.
I spent less and less time in the
Student Union after that day. Occasionally, I’d walk by the door and see Goose
in there slapping Stumpy on the back, laughing. And sometimes Stumpy would see
me standing in the doorway, watching. And then he would look away from me, and
when I couldn’t see his face, he would laugh. But even from across the room I
knew it wasn’t real laughter.
I never apologized to Stumpy. I
never asked for his forgiveness. The memory of that day in the Student Union
still haunts me. I can still see his pleading eyes and hear him hiding behind
that lonely laughter.
And I can still hear him say, “Okay,
you guys. Okay, you guys. Things are cool.” But beneath it all I know he was
begging me to stop. To listen. To care. To see past the grungy clothes and the
acne and the greasy hair. To be the one person who call him Luke instead of
Stumpy.
“Have
you met him?”
Since
then I’ve met lots of “Stumpys,” each with a different name and a different
face. But if you look close enough, their eyes are the same. They feel alone
and afraid and they’re willing to do anything to hear someone say, “You matter
to me. I care about you.” They reach out again and again for the hand that
slaps them, because without that hand they’d have nothing at all.
Maybe you’ve met someone like
Stumpy. Maybe you know someone like Stumpy. I’ll bet – if you’re honest with
yourself – you’d have to admit there have been times in your life when you’ve
known exactly how he felt.
I wish I could whisper a message
back through the years. I wish I could tell him, “I’m sorry, Luke. You do
matter. You don’t deserve this. I care. But more importantly, so does God. He
wants to be your friend. He wants to take away the pain, the loneliness and the
fear. He loves you, Luke, and you don’t have to be alone any more.”
Before you begin smelling like God,
you gotta meet him. And the amazing truth is: God is already waiting to meet
you.
More than anything else, God is
love. He cares about everyone. Stumpy. Your friends. Me. And you. No matter
what you look like, how you dress, or how you act. God cares about you. He
cares about your choices and dreams and feelings and heartaches. Everything you
do matters to him. And God wants to have a relationship with you.
The world looks at how you dress,
what you do, and what you own: Stuff +
Status = Success! But God looks at who you are underneath, in your heart.
And he sees all the hopes, struggles, questions, mistakes, hurts and doubts.
And he loves you anyway. With a love that will never fail or fade or falter or
slip away or grow cold.
You are Precious to God.
From the Book:
How to Smell like God
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