A Prayer for Children

This was posted on our adoption agency's blog. I love it, even though it makes me cry.


A Prayer For Children

We pray for children who put chocolate fingers everywhere, who like to be tickled,
who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants, who sneak Popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in their 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 in the street in a new pair of sneakers, 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
sleep with the dog and bury the goldfish, who hug in a hurry and forget their lunch
money, who cover themselves with Band-Aids and sing off-key, who squeeze
toothpaste all over the sink, who slurp their soup.

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,
whose pictures are not on anybody’s dresser, whose monsters are real.

We pray for children who spend their allowances 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 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.

We pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, who will eat
anything, who aren’t spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry
themselves to sleep, and who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for the children who want to be carried and for those who must,
for those who 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. Hughes