LOST CHILDREN

This morning we had our annual BIG SCREEN week at church. Our pastors use a modern day story (movie)  to bring Biblical truths to our lives. They use Jesus teaching in parables as an example of this kind of story telling/teaching. BIG SCREEN is only during July each year and we're encouraged to invite people who normally wouldn't go to church (but would not have a problem with going to a movie) to attend with us.

This morning the movie we watched part of was CREED. It's a boxing movie, and although my family watched it last night (in preparation) I wasn't interested. This morning I was so moved by the first scene they chose to share, that I had tears running down my face the entire time.

**I'm not writing his very smoothly, but I know I have something to say so bear with me if you've found yourself on this blog for some reason.

The first scene we saw today was a lady coming to get a boy from LOCK UP after fighting. He was fighting "again." When she went into the cell to talk to him, I knew nothing about the storyline, I knew nothing about her, or what was going to happen, but when I saw that boy, maybe 10 years old, standing there in that prison cell, I just lost it. He did not have a dad. This lady was the wife of his dad, and this boy was born of infidelity with another woman.

She was coming to get him...to take him to her home. The dad was no longer living.

This boy had been fighting for a long time already, his hands were in fists as he talked to her, he had a bruise on his cheekbone and he looked mad. ...

All I could think of was all the real boys who are in this same exact BUT REAL place of hopelessness, anger and complete loneliness. They've been abandoned and do NOT know what to do but fight. Whether it be fighting with their hands, their words or their tears, they can only fight, because that's what we  humans do to survive.

These kids need people to love them. They need people to speak TRUTH AND LOVE into their lives. They need people to teach them other things to do but fight...and I speak from experience, it takes a lot of work to un-teach them this reaction.

It's hard work. It's uncomfortable. In some cases, it will be dangerous, but not all cases. BUT, we have an epidemic of children who are LOST...lost from family, lost from love, lost from security and they need to see families who eat together, work together, play together and respect each other. If we do not get to these children we will have an epidemic of crowded jails full of angry adults who have taken guns into businesses, schools and churches...oh wait, we already do.

Consider this, there's a chance your first experience will not be good. I can GUARANTEE your work with the DHS will not be smooth. It's a system made to protect children but it is not without it's basic flaws because we shouldn't HAVE to have a system to protect children!

It will be hard, but it could also be the most rewarding thing you have ever done. And WHY should any child be standing in a prison lock up?