Prayer for Children

   This will be my most serious post to date, but I have a lot weighing on my heart, and since it's such a little heart, it's very heavy right now.  I spent Saturday with friends because mommy and daddy had to go to their foster care training class.  I'm not sure what foster care is exactly, but from what I understand it means that some parents make big mistakes that sometimes hurt their kids, so the kids need to be placed somewhere safer until their parents can get better.  But mommy said that sometimes their parents don't get better, and the kids have to find a new home.  I don't understand....why would you have an amazing, wonderful, awesome baby, if you aren't even going to take care of him/her?  I can't imagine mommy and daddy not taking care of me, just like their parents took care of them, and theirs of them and so forth.  How could you hurt a child?  I know we babies be act all big and bad sometimes, but we're really tiny and defenseless.  Why would some one take their anger out on us? 
      Mommy said that sometimes it's not that the parents intentionally hurt their child, but they make "lifestyle choices" (whatever that means) that affect their ability to care for their child.  But I don't see how that's any different than intentionally hurting your child.  Mommy even told me that some people shake their babies.  PEOPLE ACTUALLY SHAKE BABIES!!!!!!  I cried when she told me...I may cry now just thinking about it.  Common sense says if you're baby is crying, shaking them will either make them cry harder, or if it does make them stop, something is now VERY VERY WRONG with them! 
      So today,  spend time praying for all the kids in the U.S. who have to leave their homes and everything familiar, all because their parents made bad decisions.  Pray that God will raise up more people like mommy and daddy to take care of them (because mommy also said that some foster parents end up being just as bad as the child's birth parents!).  Pray for all the struggling parents too....parents who didn't have good parents themselves, so they have never had a model to follow.  Pray that those parents will have people in their lives that tell them about God, and how He is a Father to the fatherless.  Pray for the people of Social Services who have to deal with these situations daily - that God will come into their lives too, and give them compassion and wisdom.  And pray for your own family...maybe you can take in a foster child, or adopt one waiting for a permanent home.