Once again
the news is full of smashed buildings, dead children and adults, workers
searching through rubble, and families left homeless. This time it's a tornado in Oklahoma. I can’t believe this
keeps happening. Must we have a disaster every month? It’s not just here in the United
States. They’re happening all over the world. Some, like the Boston bombings,
are man-made. Others, like the tornado and Hurricane Sandy, are deemed by the
insurance companies as acts of God. One religious Facebook friend suggested
these are signs that the end of the world is coming. Maybe, maybe not.
If
you believe in praying, please offer prayers for those suffering from the
tornado and other disasters. Come to think of it, that’s what nuns and priests do. These
Catholic women and men who give up marriage and children to devote their lives to God
use their parenting energy to pray and to offer practical help wherever it’s
needed. We don’t have to be nuns or priests to do the same.
And
here’s where I make this relate to being childless. In situations where
children are dying, we can be selfishly grateful that none of them are ours,
that we will never know the heartbreak of losing a child to whom we gave birth.
Beyond that, because we don’t have children of our own to care for, we are free
to help others who do. We can be that extra set of hands so needed by parents
overwhelmed by big disasters or the little challenges of daily life.We can pray, we can babysit, we can send money to Red Cross, we can bandage wounds or help dig through the rubble.
It's easy to feel sorry for ourselves because we don't have children. We can waste our days blaming our partners or God for how things turned out. Or we can appreciate the children of the world as
mothers and fathers at large, and when we see a need, we can step forward and ask, “Can I
help?”
Do you agree?
