Statistics always follow the actual issue or problem. Here we are with only ten weeks left in this year of 2021 and we are looking at numbers from 2020, a year most of us would rather forget. We ask ourselves whether the numbers we now read about have any meaning for our future. Unfortunately, one grim number does: the number of children orphaned by the pandemic.
Pediatrician Dr. Arturo Brito, of the Children’s Health Fund, a national advocacy group, noted that Covid-19 had left at least 150,000 children without a primary caregiver and had disproportionately affected minority families including Native Americans. One in five children lived in single-parent homes and more than one in ten had a grandparent as the primary caregiver.
Caring or children affected by the pandemic is one of the challenges we face as a society because children are the future long after we’re gone. Investing in their care will ensure a healthy society for all. Those services are stretched thin already while the Congress continues to dawdle. Members seem to care more about their individual image and power than about what is happening around them.
Prayer for the Day
Wondering where you are in our distress, we cry out in anguish,
For it seems you are far from our sorrow and pain;
Like the Psalmist, we search for your presence in our lives,
For we need your transforming power to save us.
Grant us more than comfort, O Lord, in this time,
But grant us the will to confront those who hold power.
In the name of the One who confronted evil,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they never fail to imitate them.
James Baldwin, American writer (1924-1987)
You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.
Marian Wright Edelman, founder Children’s Defense Fund
Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry;
Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit;
From you let my vindication come; let your eyes see right.
Psalm 17: 1