Two saints walked past a man sitting on a boulder by a meadow. He didn’t look up or notice.
“Was I like that?” one asked.
“Worse. You hung your head like that every day. A long time it was before the lights came back in your eyes.”
“Ah, well, some are like that when they come. But He’ll get ’im straightened out.”
The look in the eyes always comes back, the posture straightens, and the head lifts. But they look for the change in the eyes first.
The man’s eyes hadn’t been like that since he was 5 years old. Used to be he’d bring his daddy a crayon-scrawled piece of paper, and Daddy would look in his eyes and listen as he told him about the drawing. He would look back, eyes opening to him, seeing glory.
“What’s this?” Daddy asked.
“Dragon.”
“Ooooh... And this?”
“My girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend!?... Nice.”
“It’s for you.”
“Thank you.”
And the father laid it on the dresser where he laid the other pictures. Sometimes several piled up until Mom placed the best in a box, and the rest she hid in a trashcan outside.
This went on until late one night his father got upset, the police came, and took him away to the hospital. He was never the same after that. His eyes were glazed. The medication helped. But he lost his job—and his life it seemed; for he’d gone some distant place inside himself and never come back.
That’s when the boy began thinking his pictures were ugly and stopped coloring altogether.
Through a whole life, his eyes never were like that again. And when he was old, he entered eternity.
A moment after the saints passed by, the Voice spoke to him: “I want to show you My treasure room.”
“Treasure room! Why me?” the man asked.
“Jes’ do.”
He agreed, and immediately he was with the Lord in a warehouse with shelves of tattered boxes.
“This is where I keep my memories.” He said.
He reached for a box. It was full of scribblings.
“Why d’you wanna keep those?”
“I like them. Look here... What’s that?”
“A dragon.”
“And that?”
“I called her my girlfriend. But I made that up.”
“It’s good.”
“Not really.”
“Yes. Really.”
“How many do You have?”
“Almost every one you ever drew.”
“Almost?”
“A few—after your dad went into the hospital—they weren’t the real you.”
His darker works were a vague memory.
“Now let me show you one of Mine,” He said.
He pulled down another box full of childish drawings.
“Why do you draw like that?”
“It’s My style.”
“Ooooh... What’s this?” The man was holding a picture.
“Demented old lady with a walker.”
“This?”
“Cat. She had 19. They fouled the house.”
“You were there?”
“I was there because you were. I watched. You shopped for her and visited her; you wouldn’t take money. It was good. So I drew a picture. I’ve got whole books of these.”
“But I got discouraged and quit. I felt like I wasn’t helping her. She wouldn’t let me clean or get rid of the cats, and the house reeked. So I asked You to send someone else, and You did. I felt bad about that. I s’pose you noticed that too.”
“I don’t remember.”
“What about the rest of these drawings?” the man asked.
“All the good things you ever did.”
“A whole box?” He looked skeptical. “Hey, wait. These were just small things I did.”
“Small!? What’re you talking about?”
“It isn’t... this isn’t what I expected. What about our righteousness being filthy rags and all that?”
The Father laughed until He drew a puzzled look, and then answered seriously: “Never ceases to amaze Me. The things people think. That wasn’t about you.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Would you have said, when your kids did something right, that it was only filthy rags?”
The question struck him. He sensed the answer in His eyes. So he looked; and all he saw was favor. And there was no bottom to it.
He saw—and then the room faded, and he found himself sitting on the boulder again, gazing over the meadow. The vision seemed to have lasted longer, but it was only a brief moment—and in that moment his doubts fled and he knew he belonged. As the light warmed his face, he lifted his head, a look in his eye, and noticed two saints walking by.
Written by Laurence Schell
