Sometimes it just breaks your heart . . .

We’d handed out garbage bags and told the kids to clean the street. Trash, lots of it, is everywhere. We wanted to begin the process of instilling pride in the teenagers. What better way than to bribe them.

Fill a bag with trash, return it, receive a prize. Simple, right?

In a flash more than 50 kids hit the street like the white tornado seen in the old television ads about Mr. Clean. Running, screaming, pushing, jostling — a real madhouse. Pigs running to get out of the way, donkeys making, well, donkey noises, bicycle riders almost knocked off their seats. Pandemonium.

In all the commotion a small statured boy quietly asked for a garbage bag. He wanted to “get his mother’s trash.” Not thinking a thing about it, I gave him a bag. He didn’t run off like the others, but walked. In the opposite direction.

Fast forward three hours.

The trash collection project had been finished for more than two hours. But here he came, bag stuffed and heavy, walking under the burden of the overfilled bag. The bag was almost as big as he was.

“Here’s my mama’s trash,” he said matter of factly. Having nothing to give him, I told him to come with me and I’d get his prize, thinking there might be some left over candy or rubber bracelets we’d handed out. He shook his head, said “no thanks,” and turned to walk away.

I called him back and asked him what was going on.

His answer caught me short and it was all I could do to not let tears fill my eyes.

“You said we needed to have pride in our town and our homes. My mama doesn’t have anything but there’s lots of trash around the house. I figured if the God you talked about loved me as much as you said, he probably loved my mama, too. I want him to be proud of her so I picked up all her trash and brought it here.”

The verse we’d been drilling into them the whole week, John 3:16, suddenly had a whole new slant to it.

God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.