We pray for the children who sneak Popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workooks, wo 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 where we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus, who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for the 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 the 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, who 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 and scream on 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, and have no being.

We pray for the children who want to be carried and for those who must,
who we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance.

For those we smother with our well meaning love,
for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it!

Author Unknown

WE PRAY FOR THE CHILDREN WHO ARE LOST OR MISSING
WHO MAY BE VERY FRIGHTENED
WHO LIVE IN THE MIDST OF STRANGERS
WHO ARE TAUGHT TO HATE
WHO MAY HAVE FOREVER LOST THEIR INNOCENCE
WHO CAN BE FOUND ONLY BY THOSE WHO CARE
SOMEONE WHO IS WATCHING FOR THEIR FACES
TO APPEAR IN A CROWD SOMEWHERE
AND SAY, "I SAW THAT FACE ON THE TV NEWS, ON THE
MILK CARTON, ON THE INTERNET SITES-I KNOW WHAT TO DO"

IF YOU ARE A MISSING CHILD AND NEED HELP

PLEASE CALL

24 Hour Hotline: 888.818.HOPE (888)818-4673
<>

NATIONAL MISSING PERSONS HELPLINE

0 800 700 740

IF YOU ARE SOMEONE  WHO IS WATCHING AND WHO CARES,
THESE ARE SOME OF THE ORGANIZATIONS YOU CAN CONTACT
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION:

AROUND THE WORLD....  WE CARE ABOUT CHILDREN

HELP FOR PARENTS GOING THROUGH DIVORCE
AWARD WINNING SITE
Offers information and advice to help the children get through this difficult time

.

CHILD MOLESTATION-HOTLINE
ONE OF AMERICA'S WORST CRIMES -FACTS

This page submitted by Eagleswings August 2000

For Children Who Were Broken

For Children Who Were Broken
it is very hard to mend......
Our pain was rarely spoken
and we hid the truth from friends.

Our parents said they loved us,
but they didn't act that way.
They broke our hearts
and stole our worth,
with the things that they would say.

We wanted them to love us.
We didn't know what we did
to make them yell at us
and hit us,
and wish we weren't their kid.

They'd beat us up and scream at us
and blame us for their lives.
Then they'd hold us close inside their arms
and tell us confusing lies
of how they really loved us --
even though we were BAD,
and how it was OUR fault they hit us,
OUR fault that they were mad.

When days were just beginning
we sometimes prayed for them to end,
and when the pain kept coming,
we learned to just pretend
that we were good
and so were they
and this was just
on of those days ...
tomorrow we'd be friends.

We had to believe it so.
We had nowhere else to go.
Each day that we pretended,
we replaced reality
with lies, or dreams,
or angry schemes,
in search of dignity ....
until our lies
got bigger than the truth,
and we had no one real to be

Our bodies were forsaken.
With no safe place to hide,
we learned to stop
hearing and feeling
what they did to our outsides.

We tried to make them love us,
till we hated ourselves instead,
and couldn't see a way out,
and wished that they were dead.
We scared ourselves by thinking that,
and scared ourselves to know,
that we were acting just like them --
and might ever more be so.

To be half the size of a grown-up
and trapped inside their pain....
To every day lose everything
with no savior or refrain...
To wonder how it is possible
that God could so forget
the worthy child you knew you were,
when you had not been damaged yet ...
To figure on your fingers
that the years till you'd be grown
enough to leave the torment
and survive away from home,
were more than you could count to,
or more than you could bear,
was the reality we lived in
and we knew it wasn't fair.

We who grew up broken
are somewhat out of time,
struggling to mend our childhood,
when our peers are in their prime.
Where others find love
and contentment,
we still often have to strive
to remember we are worthy,
and heroes just to be alive.

Some of us are healing.
some are stealing.
Most are passing the anger on.
Some give their lives away to drugs,
or the promise of like beyond.
Some still hide from society.
Some struggle to belong.
But all of us are wishing
the past would not hold on
so long.
There's a lot of digging down to do
to find the child within,
to love away the ugly pain
and feel innocence again.
There is forgiveness
worthy of angel's wings
for remembering those at all,
who abused our sacred childhood
and programmed us to fall.
To seek to understand them,
and how their pain became our own,
is to risk the ground we stand on
to climb the mountain home.

The journey is not so lonely
as in the past it s been ...
More of us are strong enough
to let the growth begin.
But while we're trekking
up the mountain
we need everything we've got,
to face the adults we have become,
and all that we are not.

So when you see us weary
from the day's internal climb ...
When we find fault
with your best efforts,
or treat imperfection
as purposeful crime ...
When you see our quick defenses,
our efforts to control,
our readiness to form a plan
of unrealistic goals ...
When we run into a conflict
and fight to the bitter end,
remember ...
We think that winning means
we won't be hurt again.

When we abandon OUR thoughts
and feelings,
to be what we believe YOU
want us to,
or look at trouble we re having,
and want to blame it all on you...
When life calls for new beginnings,
and we fear they re doomed to end,
remember...
Wounded trust is like a wounded knee--
It is very hard to bend.

Please remember this
when we are out of sorts.
Tell us the truth, and be our friend.
For children who were broken...
it is very hard to mend.

Broken Children Are Hard to Mend -Poem by unknown author

HEALING COMES ABOUT BY HELPING OTHERS-GET INVOLVED