I Believe in
The Miracle of Children
Even after all these decades I still look at children, especially babies, and marvel. They are the purest and sweetest creatures on earth and God’s way of showing us that angels truly do exist and with them hope.
I remember so clearly the days my precious children were born. They were little bundles of demands with seemingly no acknowledgement of my efforts toward them in return. As a parent I felt the full force of their dependence upon me and the endless hours of sleepless nights that left me dazed and confused. How ever lost and defeated I may have felt I knew that I had to also consider what these tiny little beings were going through. Once they adjusted to their new environment they started to trust that they would be fed and cared for and then they began to engage me through smiles and giggles and coos. This was when the payoff began for me as an exhausted parent who by now was wondering why I decided to take on the daunting task of parenting. But for the moment that smile and the look of joy on the baby’s face was reward enough to melt exhaustion completely away. It is the moment when a baby truly grabs your heart and never lets go.
The relationships I began with them were and are the strongest and the longest ones I have ever had. They have brought me the greatest joy and sometimes even the deepest pain, but without doubt they have been my most treasured of all relationships.
It was Albert Pine who said “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal”.
My children gave me a piece of physical immortality when they were born. My influence on my children will endure long after I am gone. My words whether loving and kind or course and cruel will forever impact their lives and in-turn influence how they view their children.
Our world has been shaped for better or worse by the parenting those in power received. The seeds of their beliefs were planted in their childhood and while other influences came to bear as they grew, the initial impact was made in those formative years.
Love is the best thing we have going for us as parents, because perfection is not an option. I firmly believe that children can grow up to move mountains if they know they are loved unconditionally by those who brought them into this world.
I believe we are given a real opportunity as parents to make an impact on humanity by the way we nurture and raise our children. Children are the source from which all hope for humanity springs. And each child that comes into this world deserves to be loved and cared for with respect and dignity, for they are Gods tangible blessings to us all.