The Albino

Somebody sent me a picture of an albino baby deer. He was mostly white with a few patches of brown. He had pink eyes...as most albinos do.

I have never seen an albino deer, other than that picture, but I did have an albino friend in 1st grade. His dad was the principal of our school, and his son Bliss was my best friend. Bliss had snow white hair, a gangly kind of run, green lens in his coke-bottle thick glasses, and a loud, high-pitched voice...and me as a friend.

Nobody wanted to be friends with Bliss because he could not go out in the sun... he also acted unsociable at times, and was generally misunderstood....but I liked Bliss. He was funny, had kind of "snort" when he laughed, and made me his friend. And though I didn't have a pigment problem, I was like Bliss in that neither of us was ever too comfortable around crowds. I was a scrawny first grader and the other kids picked on me because I was small, and they picked on Bliss because he was different...we were a match made in Heaven!

It is hard to like/love people that are "different." But I remember a story in the Bible where King David befriend a young man that was different. His name was Mephibosheth and he was a cripple. He had no friends or source of income due to being crippled in both feet from a boy...the victim of an overzealous nursemaid who was fleeing for their lives when she dropped him and damaged his feet.

David befriended Mephibosheth because he was the son of his best, and now deceased friend, Jonathan. David said to Mephibosheth in 2Samuel 9:7, "I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan."

There are people around us who need to be shown friendship "for the sake of OUR Father in Heaven." People who may be unlovable, handicapped, or just seemingly always on the outside looking in.

Look for that Bliss, or that Mephibosheth today and show them kindness for the "sake of your Father in Heaven."