I can't remember where I found this, but I wanted to cry when I read it. It's so beautiful and so timely, yet notice when it was written. Like the Bible, many words of yesterday are so applicable to today. When I first read it, I thought it had been written today.

 

Mayn Yingele

"My Little One"

I have a son, a little son,

A boy completely fine.

Whenever I see him, it seems to me

That all the world is mine.

But seldom, seldom do I see

My child awake and bright.

I only see him when he sleeps;

I'm only home at night.

It's early when I leave for work;

When I return, it's late.

Unknown to me is my own flesh,

Unknown is my child's face.

When I come home so wearily

In the darkness after day.

My pale wife exclaims to me:

"You should have seen our child play."

I stand beside his little bed;

I look and try to hear.

In his dream he moves his lips:

"Why isn't Papa here?"

{Yiddish song written in 1887}

 

This is so timely for today and any day, when we work so hard for our families to survive and yet we don't get time to spend with our families. It was once necessary to work just to eat (and for some of us, still is) but for those given the glorious gift of staying home to see their children grow up, appreciate it for the gift it is. This is a great gift that God gives to us in the form of our children and we sometimes struggle so hard just to assure our childrens futures that we sometimes miss their present. May we all take the time to appreciate our children while they still are.

Submitted by Sis. Karen Wheeler

Victoria McKenzie Ecclesia,

British Columbia, Canada