The Refugee Child

Soldiers came and took away her father and brother. They came again and made them all leave their little home - mother, grandmother and grandfather and all the children.

Shouts and screams and everyone was crying.
No time to gather many belongings, they were just ordered to leave - now.

The sound of planes in the distance and thick, dark smoke curling high on the horizon.
Voices of children crying, whining, I'm tired, let's go back home. I'm hungry. Where are we going?

Mothers, their own hearts breaking, in a fog of fatigue and painful disbelief, yet instinctively comforting their precious little ones.

Coming at last to a sea of others, huddling together in tents of misery. Adults speaking low in the twilight, with tears and asking why.

Yet all the while, in perfect peace, the little girl lays sleeping soundly. Her small dark head completely at rest against her mother.

"O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; nor do I involve myself in great matters, or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me." (Put your name here) "...hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever" Psalm 131:1-3.

Many things along life's pathway are too difficult for us. God knows that. That is why He tells us not to try to figure them out, but to come to Him and lay our head against His big and comforting chest and trust Him with our cares.

Copyright Daphne Harrington 1999