For the majority of my children’s lives, I was a stay-at-home mom. So I was almost always there. But my daughter, Jamie, didn’t have that same luxury. She had to work to survive, to help pay bills, to help make ends meet. And I was the most affordable childcare provider available to her. She did, in fact, pay me to watch her two little boys, although I considered it more of a service because Jamie couldn’t afford to pay me very much.
One day, Floyd and I took our youngest daughter, Michelle, coat shopping at Burlington Coat Factory. Jamie was at work, so we had her two little boys with us. Luke was in the stroller, so he was easy to watch, but Jay was a bit more mobile, as is typical of your average 2 year old. Floyd figured that we’d get done faster if we could divide and conquer, so he said he’d watch the boys so I could focus on finding Michelle a coat. It seemed like a good plan until I got to the checkout with the coat and Michelle. Almost immediately, Floyd joined me pushing the baby stroller. And I only saw one child.
“Where’s Jay?” I asked him.
“Um, he’s…” Floyd looked around and suddenly realized he didn’t have Jay. That little rascal had escaped in a crowded Burlington Coat Factory.
Now we weren’t the parents – only the grandparents, but talk about panic. Jamie entrusted us with her precious and irreplaceable babies and we lost one of them. A child that small could be snatched so easily and so quickly that Floyd and I didn’t waste one precious second. We split up and ran through that store like crazy people looking for that child, calling his name, and praying that we found him before some pervert realized he was alone.
And our world is full of perverts. Every caring and conscientious parent knows the dangers that lurk outside of their home, and those who prey on children in one form or another. This world is not safe! And if our little ones are going to reach adulthood, especially without the emotional scars of abuse, parents must be proactive in their parenting.
We found Jay toward the back of the store, people moving by him everywhere. No one even noticed a toddler wandering around by himself. Jay is now 14 years old, standing about 5’10”, and a freshman in high school. There’s a real good chance that he is now out of danger from the people who prey on the small and the weak. All the adults in his life have worked hard to protect and guard him. Soon, that baton will be passed to him. He wants to go into the Air Force Academy and one day be a fighter pilot. Then what?
James 4:14 says, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” We know the phrase: Here today; gone tomorrow. That describes life. So whether he dies young or lives into his 90’s, when he dies, he goes out into eternity. And eternity never ends. It’s important to protect our children in this life, but if we work only to protect their physical life and fail to prepare them for the afterlife, we fail miserably.