We Pray for Children

My friend, Cindilee, sent me this poem a couple weeks ago. She asked me to post it and I didn't because of some computer issues. I ran across it tonight and knew I needed to post it right now.

My friend is a Compassion International advocate and often gets me to go along to help hand out packets to sponsor children with Compassion. It is an honor to hold the packets in my hands and help people sponsor these precious children. This poem reminded her of these children.

I do sponsor a child. His name is Fabrizzo and he lives in Peru. I wish I could sponsor ten of these kids. I can't, but maybe I can post this poem at my friend's request and it will touch the hearts of 10 people who would make the choice to sponsor a Compassion child.

You will be blessed by doing so. I have been.

We pray for children
Who sneak Popsicles before supper,
Who erase
holes in math workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.

And we
pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who
can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
Who never “counted
potatoes,”
Who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
Who never go
to the circus,
Who live in an x-rated world.

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 never get dessert,
Who have no safe 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 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 or temple and scream in the phone,
Whose
tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

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.

We pray for children who want to be
carried and for those who must,
For those we never give up on and for those
who don’t get a second chance,
For those we smother . . . and for those who
will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Ina J.
Hughs