Our neighborhood, and the adjacent community, is full of kids.  Most kids are good, none are angels, and a few have been uninvited from playing with my boys.

One boy, and his little brother, stand out.  They are always getting into trouble.  Not the “stealing cars and burning down houses” kind of trouble, just the general shenanigans of preteen boys.  They swear like sailors, are always at loose ends, and don’t listen to adults when I tell them that our boys can’t play with them and they can’t cut through our yard to hop the fence.

See, they were our kids friends over the summer until I had to ban them from playing together.  They always encourage my boys to disobey – go too far up the creek, take a walk to the gas station to buy candy, scale fences and cut through people’s yards for a shortcut,  just general things that we don’t allow.  Every time the boys were with these kids, they were getting in trouble.

And yet, my heart hurts for these boys.  They don’t have a mother.  Yesterday the older one was walking up and down the street, alone, and it was cold (not frigid, just cold for Houston.)  He looked so sad and so lonely.  I know their home life isn’t ideal.  I wanted to invite him in- but my boys aren’t allowed to play with him!

And, he has no mother.  I can’t escape that thought, this little boy with no mama to guide or scold or worry that he’s walking up and down the sidewalks alone.

God tells us to practice hospitality.  Not just being nice, but inviting others into our home.  (And what to feed them?)  Can I turn a blind eye to a little one in need, saying Not My Kid?  I know his dad, doing the best he can and muddling through, like the rest of us.

I think maybe he can come over, but they’ll all have to play inside, directly supervised.  What would you do?