Each night, before I finally let my mind drift off into slumber, I send some fervent prayers…
Please Lord,
Keep them safe.
Shield their eyes from that which will steal their innocence.
Shield their hearts from heartbreak.
Shield their souls from bad influences and harmful temptations.
Please, help them find friends
And peace
And joy.
Teach them to know forgiveness.
Teach them to show mercy.
Teach them to give rather than hope to receive.
I say these prayers, and I beg for a guiding hand over my children for the times when I am not with them.
And then halfway around the world and halfway across town, there are mothers who don’t have the luxury of the same prayers.
There are mothers who pray for safety in neighborhoods that are not safe.
There are mothers who pray for love for their children from fathers whose hands are raised to hit rather than hug.
There are mothers who can’t afford the drugs their children need, and there are mothers whose only prayer is that a drug would actually help.
And there are mothers of all nations and all creeds who pray for the safety of children growing up not in the large, open backyards of suburbia, but in the desolate wastelands of war and poverty stricken countries.
There are mothers whose prayers for peace and safety for their children last week went unanswered as lethal and vicious weapons were used not only on over a thousand innocent adults but on hundreds of children who never had the luxury of maintaining innocent thoughts and dreaming innocent dreams.
And so when lay my head down tonight, again I will prayer the same fervent prayers for my children, but I will also remember all of those other children and other mothers whose lives are so different from my own even though their hopes are so very similar.
Safe within the confines of suburban America or out in a dessert in the Middle East all of us mamas have the same instincts with and emotions for our children. I’ll never understand why our prayers have to be so different and our inequalities so unjust.