Prayer of the Children
This morning for Children’s Sabbath Sunday we sang the song, “Prayer of the Children” by Kert Bestor. We began rehearsing it weeks ago. Much like all the songs we begin in Church Choir, I expect the theology to be simple and self-centered and music to be generic. But this time we sang the first lines:
Can you hear the prayer of the children
on bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?
Yes, I yelled from deep within my being and kept singing…
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry
turning heavenward toward the light.
Crying,” Jesus, help me
to see the morning light of one more day,
but if I should die before I wake,
I pray my soul to take.”
I can hear them, I have thought about their prayers, cried about their prayers, and prayed their prayers with and for them.
Can you feel the hearts of the children
aching for home, for something of their very own.
If there were one kind of poverty that I would eradicate, it would be cultural poverty. There are countless people who feel they do not have a place that is home or where people know their name. I want to listen their story and appreciate their music, dance, and creative arts- to give them a name as an instrument of God.
I have never been able to get through the whole song without that feeling in my nose and tears falling down my face. Even this morning when we sang:
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,
blood of the innocent on their hands.
Crying,” Jesus, help me
to feel the sun again upon my face?
For when darkness clears, I know you’re near,
bringing peace again.”
tears flowed down my face and somehow — I have to believe — I will help bring peace to all God’s children and end social poverty.
You can listen to the song on YouTube here.
