Helping a Million of Children

          "I was working for Focus on the Family’s children’s magazines, and my supervisor gave me a Mother’s Day Card. Inside she had written: “Thanks for being a spiritual mother to thousands of children.” I hadn’t thought of my job as mothering. I viewed my childless life differently after that. I began to see all of the children God had placed in my life to nurture: nephews and nieces, my friends’ children, the kids in the Sunday School class I taught, even a teen I met for coffee once a week."


       "I didn’t view these experiences as a consolation prize for not being a mom yet. They were God’s gifts and a chance for me to live in ways I had been created for — long before I became someone’s actual “Mommy.” As I embraced my nurturing side with other people’s children, I had less fear about never having children of my own."

       "He can provide exactly what you need to live the full reality of who He’s made you to be. If He created you with a heart that longs to nurture and protect, He will put people in your life to nurture and protect, even if they don’t come in the form you expect them to. Be willing to see where God is trying to redirect passions or desires that you may think can only be filled in a particular way."

       "You are intentionally created and deeply loved, and even while those longings are still unmet, take hope and purpose in seeing His fingerprints in these areas."

These quotes are from an article called, "I Feel Like I was Born to Have Babies" by Susanne Hadley Gosslin. 

         These quotes and the whole article meant the world to me. I am single with no children yet but I have been in the childcare field for almost 10 years and 29 years if you want to count my first nephew and on. This title of the entry might go or it might not. We will see which way this entry goes but I am not going to change it because either way it is true for me personally. 

         I will say that I probably have not help a million of children yet but it should does feel like it most of the time. I know that I have dealt with a lot of different children from international to in states children. I am also taking care of a teenager right now and a few at that if you want to get to the point. I am even taking care of a college going child. Yes, child to get more precise. Don't tell me I don't know what it is like not having any children. 

        I am a mother like figure to a lot of children and I can tell you for sure that I was that figure to at least 200 of them that were abused children. That is one group that I have worked with before. Then had maybe 100 or 150 more that was in an orphanage in Guatemala that I visited for two years so that would be 350 children. That is just guessing at the orphanage. There might have been more. 

        Then I have been a mother like figure for 8 hours a day to children working in daycares, preschools, and combination of both of those things. I have worked in a college setting daycare, headstart daycare (where it is low income families), non profit daycares, children's shelter for the abused, and big business like ones along with orphanages like I said before. I have also worked at feeding centers that had families with children. Those feeding centers were in Mexico and even one in Texas. 

       I even volunteer at a place in TX over a college spring break where a lot of Hispanic children lived and were apart of. That group would go out to apartment buildings around town and to VBS in the summer for the children that lived in those apartments. They were really torn down looking apartments. The group had a build of their own where families could go and get food if they needed it and medical help too. 

        I am also sponsoring two children through Compassion International and one is 17 now and the other one is 5. The 17 year old girl I started to sponsor when she was 5 and I was probably close to 18 year old myself. She is from the Philppians. The 5 year old girl I just started sponsoring in December and she lives in Guatemala. 

        All this to say that I might not be a mom just yet or I might never be. God might keep giving me children through adventures like these but no matter what I will always have children. He might not what me to have my own. Every child that I come in contact with steals a piece of my heart and I will always remember them. I will admit some more then other but that also depends on the time I get to spend with them and what not. Different situations equals different amounts if you know what I mean. 

        Also all this to say that God could just be preparing me to for my own kids because I have and still am learning a lot from every place that I work or go to. I see why not to do something even if I have been told not to do it to my own children. Things I never thought I would have to see to know not to do that to them but it still helps to have those stories and images in my head even though it is scary at times. I have also seen different ways of raising children. Less TV or more TV. Indoors all the time or Outdoors most of the time. City child or Country child and why. And so on. 

        Never down on someone's passion because they don't know what a situation is like or because they don't have something you do in this case a child. You don't know their whole life story. There is more to a person then anyone knows. You can't get to know a whole person in a year especially if they are the quite type.