He opened the door and saw her before him, a pretty young blonde woman with a bright, perky smile, holding a wad of attractive leaflets. Her smile wavered slightly when she saw him, and he knew why - it was a familiar experience for him - he was ugly.
He was so ugly in fact that his father used to joke to his friends that the doctor slapped the mother at birth, causing everyone to laugh, thinking that the boy was asleep, rather than cowered at the top of the stairs, tears flowing down his disfigured cheeks.
The woman on his doorstep recovered her composure, held out a leaflet and said, “Did you know that Jesus loves you?”
He looked at her kindly, conscious of his coarse, gnarled hands, his broken smile and twisted countenance, and recalling the years of lonely pain and sorrow replied, “Does he?”
She stood silent for a while, gazing at this broken creature before her, then reached forward, took hold of his hands in hers, and wept.
