I love working at a children's hospital...especially one that cares for kids from all walks of life. Every day I feel like I am making a difference, even though I am not in direct patient care. One thing is certain: we are all focused on one thing - the care and well-being of children. The CEO shared this prayer with me; his Rabbi's wife read this during the High Holy Days. Very powerful and thought-provoking - too often, as we hug our children, we forget of those who are less fortunate...I hope this inspires you as it did me:
"We pray for the children who put chocolate fingers on everything, who love to be tickled who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants, who eat candy before supper and wh can never find their shoes in the morning.
"And we also pray for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, who have never bound down the street in a new pair of shoes, who have never played "one potato, two potatoes," and who are born in places where we wouldn't be caught dead in and that they will be.
"We pray for the children who give us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who sleep with their dog and who bury their goldfish, who hug us so tightly and who forget their lunch money, who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink, who watch their fathers shave and who slurp their soup.
"And we also pray for those who will never get dessert and who have no favorite blanket to drag around behind them, who watch their fathers suffer, who cannot find any bread to steal, who do not have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures are on milk cartons instead of on dressers, and whose monsters are real.
"We pray for the children who spend all of their allowance by Tuesday, who pick at their food, who love ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed and who never rinse the bathtub, who love visits from the Tooth Fairy, even after they find out who it really is, who do not like to be kissed in front of the school bus, and who squirm during services.
"And we also pray for those children whose nightmares occur in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who are not spoiled by anyone, who go to bed hungry and wake up hungry, who live and move and have no address. We pray for those children who like to be carried and for those children who have to be carried, for those who give up and for those who never give up, for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it and for those who find no hand to grab.
"For all these children, God, we pray today, for they are all so precious."
by Ina J. Hughs
--C.L.C.
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