Are you paying it forward?

What Are You Giving Back?

We all have something we can share with those around us.  Perhaps we have extra finances that we can give when the opportunity arises.  Maybe we have toys and clothing, jewelry, mittens. hats and clothes that can be sown into the lives of those in need with which we come in contact.

• And as you ponder the needy, I would like to remind you of those you may or may not be impacted by and that is the many foster and adoptive children that are in your city, in your state, and in this country.

I would like for you to come with me, if you would, to a dark place; it is a place I see in the eyes of the children I interact with every day.  In their eyes, I see the effects of their parent’s addictions.  I see it in the tremors of their little bodies.  I see the questions and the knowledge of worldly things they have that is way beyond their years.  I see the impact of lost relationships.  I see the impact of separation and anxiety, of the fear of what might be coming next.  I see the long and short term effects of the trauma they have experienced.

Sigmund Freud once said I cannot think of any need in childhood that is as strong as the need for a father’s protection.

And yet the thing these children have experienced the least is the protection of an earthly Father.

I hope at this point, you are wondering how you could possibly help.  The answer is quite simple.  Perhaps you can open your heart and your home to children who have been neglected and/or abused.

If you are not able to offer a home, then can you offer your time?  Can you offer to be a mentor or a big brother or sister to a child who has been abused and neglected?

What all children need, not just the children that are part of the foster and adoption system, is adults who, by example, solve their conflicts without violence and their problems without the use drugs and alcohol.  They need to see adults that lead from places of integrity.

In order for this generation to not reproduce the violence and abuse that they have witnessed, they need to be shown a better way.

God forbid my friends, the society that is too busy to lead these children into that better way.