Glimpses

Trees blowing against a sodden grey sky,

Anxious for a promise

Kept

In cool wisps of life

Falling

 

I wish all promises were kept

 

I wish daddies didn’t leave

Little girls dancing, dancing,

Looking, hoping

Abandoned

Little girls don’t understand

Forever

Bad dad

 

I wish ‘I do’ didn’t mean

Maybe

To 41% of American families

 

I wish the name

God

Didn’t have uncapitalized

Counterparts

And the land of the lost

Was just old-school television

 

I wish single parent

Were two words

Never married

 

I wish Jesus

Didn’t have to die

And my little girl wouldn’t cry

At sight of the cross

Sad for the Savior

She doesn’t yet know she needs

 

 

I wish rounded tummies

And precious kicks

Always fulfilled their promise

Of life

And tiny graves weren’t necessary

 

 

I wish crying babies

Had translators

and new mamas

Faith in their heartstrings

Resonating…

Respond!

 

I wish evil

Didn’t visit children

In the night

Through the blackened hearts of men

 

I wish glimpses

Into my soul

Were pure light

Shining

Unscarred

 

But…

 

Since sometimes daddies do leave

Little girls dancing

I wish every little girl

Had a pinch-hitter

Step into their lives

Redeeming fatherhood

 

 

Since ‘I do’

So often becomes ‘I did’

I wish shattered lives

Would always land in Healing Hands

 

 

 

Since the land of the lost

Exists in the dark

I wish Light would shine

Through the hearts of the found

 

 

Since single and parent

Do coexist

I wish for others one like mine

With abundance found

Inside of need

Hands that help

And heart of grace

 

 

Since the Cross

Was the Way

Chosen

I wish my little tender-hearted girl

A heart full of Jesus

 

 

Since babies sometimes

Are Heaven-born

I wish all empty arms

The healing gift

Of sweet new wiggly life

With the lingering scent of Creation

In the crook of a tiny neck

 

Since the language of newness

Is unfathomable

I wish cries equaled cuddles

Always

 

 

Since evil

Is

I wish guardians to guard

Ferociously

The innocent

 

Since pain lives

In me

Not I in it

I wish to share

Healing

In glimpses of hope

 

 

Award-winnning author, L.R.Knost, is the founder and director of the children's rights advocacy and family consulting group, Little Hearts/Gentle Parenting Resources, and Editor-in-Chief of Holistic Parenting Magazine. Books by L.R.Knost include Whispers Through Time: Communication Through the Ages and Stages of Childhood ; Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages ; The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline ; and Jesus, the Gentle Parent: Gentle Christian Parenting the first four books in the Little Hearts Handbook gentle parenting series, and children’s picture books Petey’s Listening Ears and the soon-to-be-released Grumpykins series.