A Prayer for the Children by Ina Hughes

I wanted to take a moment to share with you the following prayer - this was prayed as part of a beautiful commissioning service to "send us on our way" yesterday at church.  I had never heard this prayer before and it broke my heart.  Please pray this with us...  THIS is the reason we are going on this trip!

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 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 soft blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who cannot 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 their friends,
who squirm in church and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles 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 with love - and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

We pray for the children.  Amen

Thank you for your prayers - Tanya