The Difference II

One day I sat in a church and watched as a young girl left the meeting, presumably to use the rest room. I watched as she left. Her hair was greasy and sloppily done, her clothes were too big and quite disheveled. Her face was drawn with seeming nervousness. It was evident she was at the awkward pre-adolescence age, where a child is learning to care for themselves.

A few minutes later I watched as she re-entered the room. "What is the difference?" I wondered. "She looks just like some of the children in the Ukrainian orphanage we left not too long ago."

As she sat back down on her bench, her mother smiled as she reached her arm past another child to place her loving hand gently on this girl's shoulder. "That's it," I realized. "She's been gone, and someone is happy now that she's back. THAT is the difference."