Our Most Precious Commodity

Guest post
by Suzann Darnall

After the past several weeks of special events, family gatherings, and time spent with my grandchildren, I cannot believe I am writing about the heartbreaking view some in our world take on the worth of children. Our most precious commodity and some treat them as inconvenient or disposable. In my opinion, it is beyond sad, it is despicable, if not downright evil.

As I am writing this, my husband and I are blessed to have three of our granddaughters spend the weekend with us. Just another in a list of special times we have gotten to spend with our grandchildren over the past weeks, months, and years. We are extremely lucky in that one set of grandkids live in the same town and the other set lives about 1 hour away. So, we do see them fairly often. But, despite the frequency of get-togethers, we are still quite cognizant of the value of each moment we get to have with the precious wee folk who are part of our family and our lives.

The sweetness of time spent with my six living grandchildren is made more valuable in the knowledge that we have one little angel who only stayed here for a brief time. We were blessed with getting to meet her. She lived, she breathed, and her little heartbeat. She was held by her parents, loved by her siblings, treasured by her grandparents, and even seen by her great-grandparents on FaceTime. Just a few all too brief hours that measured her life’s span and which must last each of us a lifetime until we meet her on the other side.

So, as I bask in the joy of time with my grandbabies, I am reminded of the frailty of the lives of some of our little ones. This is balanced by the those who are healthy and simply grow up way too fast for the parents and grandparents who want to treasure the phases and ages children go through in their life’s journey.There is a small bit of sorrow combined with great joy to the found in the knowledge that the Lord only gives them to us for a space of time. Some of them leave this life to soon, while others grow up to move out to live on their own as adults. Of course, there is another set of sorrows when a child lives a long life but is permanently caught in a state of child-like need due to issues with mind and/or body.

But, what is breaking my heart is not those children who are loved and cherished by their families and their communities. Those who are cared for during a short life, a long life, a life of illness, or a life of health. These little ones are not the children we should be concerned about. It is those who are not considered to be the gems of our society by their families or their communities that we should be trying better to protect.

We should be outraged that socialized medicine is deciding which babies should be allowed (or even forced) to die. We should be angry that extensive armed security is used to protect politicians, banks, entertainment venues, jewelry stores, and celebrities, but not our children’s schools. We should be doing everything we can to decrease abortions and increase adoptions. We should be making sure that foster-care is a temporary, safe option for children, not a money-making scheme for government leeches and nothing more than job-security for social workers. We should be preventing the horror of Female Genital Mutilation. We should be aggressively prosecuting pedophiles, child-pornographers, and those forcing children into the sex-trade. In short, we should be doing anything and everything to protect the innocents among us!

What is more precious than our children? They are the crowning jewel of any society. They are the hope for good things to come. Children are the future. Why are we wasting, damaging, and killing ours?

Read more of Suzann's essays at WoolyMammoth.Org