I am increasingly convinced that there is a war going on over our children. Sometimes the message is subtle: “Just tell your mom that my parents will be there”. Sometimes it’s quite overt, as in the case of a million pornography websites targeted to boys between the ages of 11 and 14. Children shouldn’t have to fight for their safety in their school, with their friends, in their own home.

 

 

 

And then I think of orphans. Millions of children have lost one or both of their parents all over the world. I heard a story of a group of men walking into a remote village in Africa only to find that the entire parent generation had died, leaving only children and the elderly, with one seventeen-year-old girl trying to raise an entire village on her own. Children shouldn’t have to raise children.

 

 

 

Our enemy laughs every time a child is orphaned, threatened, bullied, tempted, victimized, abandoned, sucked in, dragged down, treated as an adult much too soon.

 

 

 

But there is hope.

 

 

 

I believe that prayer is effective. That God calls us to be a voice for the voiceless and to intercede for those who don’t yet know to do so.

 

 

 

And I also believe that the end of the story has been written, and that we simply have an arduous uphill climb until we get to that beautiful finish. And when it’s all said and done, each tear of every child will be wiped away, all wounds healed, all relationships restored, all justices will be avenged.

 

 

 

Until then, we call out to God on their behalf.We beg him to move heaven and earth to bring protection and strength and healing and parents and joy and love into the life of every child, snapping in half the fiery darts of the enemy.