Presented by Rabbi Arnie Sleutelberg
A Prayer for the Children
We know and pray for children
who put chocolate fingers on everything, sneak popsicles before supper,
who love to be tickeled, who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
who can never find their shoes.
And we remember and pray for the children ,
who couldn’t bound down the street in a new pair of shoes,
who couldn’t go outside to play,
who trembled, alone, in their dark hiding places.
We know and pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfulls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we remember and pray for the children
who never got dessert, who had no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watched their parents watch them suffer,
who couldn’t find any bread to steal, who didn’t have rooms to clean up,
and whose monsters were real.
We know and pray for children
who spend their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery stores and pick at their food, who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy, who squirm in shul and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at, and whose smiles can make us cry.
We remember and pray for the children
whose nightmares came in the daytime,
who would eat anything, who couldn’t see a dentist,
who were separated from their family, who weren’t spoiled by anybody,
who went to bed hungry and cried themselves to sleep.
We pray for children who like to be carried, and for those who had to be carried,
for those who gave up and those who did not give up.
For those who grab the hand of those kind enough to offer it,
And for those who found no hand to grab.
For all these precious children, O G-d, we remember and we pray.
by Ina J. Hughs (adapted)
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