What It's Like Wednesday #4 ... The Big Fat Lie

I stood staring. Speechless.
She stood smiling. Nervously.
"But Mommy, I thought Em..." She cut him off quickly, before he could say what I already knew.
It was a lie. A BIG fat lie.
In the store filled with balloons, paper plates and candy we were both doing the same thing. Shopping for our son's birthday parties. We were leaving, she was coming and so we stopped. We explained, she explained, with one great difference. She lied.
M wasn't invited. I had waited and waited for something. Anything. Hoping against hope that it was coming. But it didn't. Instead, I stood in a store, staring at the evidence of the lie, knowing it was a lie, listening to the lie and saying nothing.
What could I say?
Why didn't you invite my sweet, precious M?
I knew the answer, or at least thought I did. M was new. Rough around the edges. Very rough.
And still my heart hoped that they would look beyond the roughness and see the little boy.
The little boy with a smile that melts your heart.
The little boy hurting and scared.
The little boy who could charm a room.
The little boy that had never known a friend.
The little boy that didn't know he wasn't wanted.
...

Sometimes the ugly bits of parenting an older child from foster care don't come from within the walls of my own home. They come from outside. In the worst possible ways. People that I hoped would love my difficult to love little boy. People I thought would understand. People who should love with grace. Sometimes they don't. My heart rips and bleeds with sadness for my M. A child that didn't cause any of this, but must live with the consequences.
So I wait. I pray and I wait.
I pray that God will not only change M's heart. To calm the anxious fears and need to control. But also that he will change the hearts of those who don't understand, who can look at a child and choose not to love.  And also for me, that I can forgive. Forgive the hurt and love even when it isn't returned. And to remember. Remember that they can't see what I see.

I am linking up here.