December 31, 2001
TOGETHER:
Thank God for tender childcare
___Rosemary and I were at our church's Christmas Eve service when we began to sing "Away in a Manger." I thought about the time, some years ago, when I suggested in a sermon that the songwriter had it wrong when the carol says about Jesus, "no crying he makes." Jesus was a little child who needed food to eat and diapers changed, and he certainly cried, as any child would do. He was human as well as divine, after all.
___All that is true, but I was the one who got it wrong--not the songwriter.
___In that Christmas Eve moment of worship, I understood that this song is a lullaby. As a child lingers between the activity of wakefulness and the quiet peace of slumber, you softly sound out the words to calm the fears of the night and lull the baby to sleep.
___God broke through into my dull heart with his presence. He used the singing of a phrase that I had belittled so many years ago. The song wasn't suggesting that Jesus never cried. It was simply reassuring a child that it is all right to go on to sleep--the crying can stop, and she or he can quietly rest just as Jesus did so long ago.
CHARLES WADE
Executive Director
BGCT Executive Board
___With renewed interest, I picked up the song and continued to sing. "Bless all the dear children in thy tender care, and fit us for heaven to live with thee there." And my heart flew open to the needs of children everywhere.
___I thought of frightened and hungry children in Afghanistan who will now have a future if good government and food will arrive in time. I thought of children who lost a daddy or mother in the World Trade Center or the Pentagon and faced this Christmas with an awful sense of loss. I thought of children in the Sudan who are homeless and starving. I thought of the children in Texas who need health care, good schools, loving parents and even a warm place to sleep and food for empty stomachs.
___I resolved to do my very best to help Texas Baptists be aware of the needs of children throughout Texas and around the world. And to say "thank you" for your generous gifts through the Cooperative Program, the Mary Hill Davis Offering and the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger that make such a powerful difference in the lives of children.
___Every Sunday when you bring your offerings to church, a portion goes through the Cooperative Program to help Buckner Children and Family Services with a network of ministries in 25 Texas cities that cared for more than 80,000 children and families last year. Add to that the thousands who received care from the Texas Baptist Children's Home and Family Services in Round Rock, the Baptist Child and Family Services in San Antonio and the South Texas Children's Home in Beeville.
___I prayed: "Lord, thank you for your tender care for children. Thank you for the hundreds of thousands of Texas Baptists who teach in the schools, work through the child care ministries, and give and pray for children everywhere. Please help us all to join you in your work on behalf of children. And especially, Lord, fit us all for heaven to live with thee there."
___We are loved.
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