A child's eyes

I watched with pride-filled eyes, as only a doting father can as my son pulled away from the starting block at swimming. I looked around at other parents and, predictably, they all had exactly the same look in their eye. It is one of life’s truest things that there is one most beautiful, bright and blessed child in the world and every mother has that child. Nothing portrays more than a child whose heart has not been tainted with our folly, whose mind has remained untangled by the complexities of our contemporary society.

More than one author has penned words expressing the notion that when God wants to do something beautiful in the world, he moves not through clever politicians, provocative philosophers or religious gurus, but through mothers, who after bearing seed, wait…with hope. The world’s greatest tragedy therefore must be gazing into the eyes of a child who reflects no promise of tomorrow, whose window to their soul is darkened by the shadows of a life fraught with difficulty and pain.

Citizens of the world must, in response, unite to march hope right back into the lives of those who stand to gain the most from a renewed sense of hope. May our words bear the cadence of a loving God restoring hope in what many feel is a hopeless world. An activist once told the story of a weekend away with his son, after feeling that their father-son relationship had deteriorated into a monologue made necessary by exchanging only the most basic information. In an unusual burst of expression, the young man let his father know in no uncertain terms that he felt ‘bummed out’ by his father’s worldview. With his incessant ranting about the world’s ills, he unwittingly crafted a world with no prospects, no hope for future generations. Let’s endeavour to fight despair, never dimming the light in our child’s eyes, never dulling the hope that helps life make sense.