Thoughts for Thursday

Years ago (we are talking about 14 years) I used to write a column in a weekly local newspaper. When I was cleaning out one of my 10 million junk drawers (a post for another day) I ran across a few dozen of these columns that I had clipped from the paper and saved. My original intent for them was to laminate them and put them in some kind of 3-ring binder for safe-keeping. But now that I scrapbook with a vengeance, I'm sure their "presentation" will be a bit more than a 3-ring binder. Probably some extravagant album with pull outs and beautiful paper and grand layouts.

But I digress.

ANYWAY...I'm cleaning out the junk drawer (I'm telling you, I took pictures of that gigantic mess) and I started reading through some of these old columns of mine. One of them particularly grabbed at my heart because of some recent happenings with some of my kids' friends. This was printed originally back in December of 1993...and I found it amazing that 15 years later it can still be so relevant to something happening in my life now. So here it is, my column "A Simple View Point" as it appeared so many years ago:

Every week we print and mail the Red Bluff Rotary Club's weekly newsletter, "The Lava". A few weeks back this poem was submitted to be inserted in to it. It was presented to them by their district governor during a special meeting, and I was very moved by it and decided to share it with you (grab the tissue box):

A Prayer For Children

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

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 to 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,
who 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,
whos 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 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

During this busy holiday season, please don't forget what is really important in our lives...and what is important in the lives of others as well. God Bless.