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I hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for the holidays. I have a poem I received when I was teaching in an elementary school. It's not the usual jolly Christmas poem but it really gets to the heart of how our children live today.
It had a profound effect on me and made me think about all the things we take for granted.
We pray for children who sneak
Popsicles before supper
Who erase holes in math worksheets
Who can never find their shoes.
We pray for children who bring us sticky
kisses and fistfuls of dandelions
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their
lunch money.
And we pray for those who stare at
photographs behind barbed wire
Who can't bound down the street in a
new pair of sneakers
Who never played "hide and seek"
Who are born in places we wouldn't
be caught dead in
Who never go to the circus
Who live in an x-rated world.
We pray for children who spend all
their allowance before Tuesday
Who throw tantrums in the grocery
store and pick at their food
Who like ghost stories
Who shove dirty clothes under the
bed and never rinse out the tub
Who get visits from the tooth fairy
Who don't like to be kissed in front
of the carpool
Who squirm in church and scream
in the phone
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at
and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those who never
get dessert
Who have no safety blanket to drag
behind them
Who watch their parents watch them die
Who can't find any bread to steal
Who don't have any rooms to clean up
Whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser
Whose monsters are real.
We pray for children who want to be
carried and those who must
For those we never give up on and for
those who don't get a second chance
And for those we smother and for those who
will grab the hand of anyone
Kind enough to offer it.
And we pray for those whose nightmares
come in the daytime
Who will eat anything
Who have never seen a dentist
Who aren't spoiled by anybody
Who go to bed hungry and cry
themselves to sleep
Who live and move, but have no being.
Author unknown
What happened to elementary school children
in a small town in Connecticut is too awful to
comprehend. Years ago, no one could
imagine that their children weren't safe in
their own schools. The teachers and staff at
this school are true heroes by the way they
did everything possible to save these
children even to the point of giving up their
own lives. Now we need to pray that the
children who are so precious to us will come
back to us everyday. I know in our large
DA community there are many different
religions and beliefs, but I believe these
precious children who were killed truly are
"in the arms of the angels" today.
