Happy New Year @ Friday with Friends!

Welcome to Linnette's "Friday with Friends" in 2013! 

We're starting off the new year with a very special poem by Josh Bechtel. What better way to follow the birth of our Lord than with the Gospel message in Jesus blessing the little children! Here's "An Awkward Kid". Take it away, Josh!

An awkward kid

In the back edges of the crowd

With a full head of curly hair.

A scared feeling in his heart:

“I hope He doesn't notice me---

Yet wish He would”

Is written all across his face.

He doesn't really trust his own mom

Hardly even knows his dad.

He doesn't even know

Why he is here.

Someone said

Jesus was a kind and gentle man...

Almost fun to be around.

And it sort of looks like He is.

But those twelve men---

They say they're called disciples---

They're big and strong... important.

You would have to be...

To be a friend of Him.

He looks around

And sees his friends

Around the master.

He's just about to move

And make his way up to the Man...

But Peter, James and John

Push him away.

“Look here, Jesus is busy

And has no time for you.

Don't you know that He's been teaching

All day long?!”

The moms of some of his buddies

Anxiously pull their sons away

Fully accepting the disciples word

That their kids were in the way.

Those closest to the Master say it

So of course it must be true.

Cause look, he's not too smart,

Is shy in crowds...

Often clams up when spoken to

Especially by the important...

Which the Twelve are, certainly.

There is no way a little kid his age

Could understand

The deep and profound things

The Lord has had to say.

The disciples' rebuke is suddenly

Put to silence by a look

From the Master they professed

To Follow and protect

From the grimy, sticky hands

Of untrained kids.

“Allow the children--

Bring it on. And don't you dare

Forbid them.”

The disciples―shocked, bewildered;

The children; overjoyed...

Can they believe it...

And can they actually come...

And will He actually accept them...

They're not really in His way?

Some race up through the crowd

To be the first to scramble

Onto His lap.

But some hold back,

And they can hardly help it...

Been told so long

They are not worth His time.

They gasp and almost fear to believe it

Can childish hearts and hands

Reach up to the Divine?

He bids them “Come”

And some of them start coming...

This Kingdom of God

Thrives on such as these...

With no more sense

Than to accept His offer

With shrieks of joy

Scramble up on His knees.

The kingdom of God

Is far from “adult wisdom”

It's in a child 

Now laughing on His knees.

~ Josh Bechtel, 2010 All Rights Reserved

Author of "Finding My Voice"

There you have it! What a glorious wonder that Jesus, the Creator God and Son of Man would lower himself to reach out and love little children! For those who would like to see why this poem is significant for Linnette, go read her personal story:
A Love That Will Not Let Me Go!


Josh Bechtel ~ Born in 1977 in Pendleton, Oregon, Josh was adopted at age 10. He grew up in Estacada, Oregon. He worked at a children's home in Virginia as well as at a Men's rehad in Indiana. He currently lives in Orrvile, Ohio and is a part-time freelance writer. Check out his book, "Finding My Voice".