Their faces speak to us, the faces of the world's children portrayed in news reports and on magazine covers. Often they are the faces of children involved in tragedies that no one should ever have to experience. What can we do when we long to heal these children's hurts, to save them from abusive situations, and to rescue them from the wars and famines of the world's making?

We can more deeply cherish the qualities of purity and innocency, which are inherent in children, and, actually, in all of us—qualities from God. These are qualities that the world does not seem to value. Providing a supportive environment for the development and protection of these qualities in children is not generally a priority in society. The simple, pure child thought, instead of being valued as a strength, is more often associated with vulnerability.

But the qualities that make up childlike thought—innocence, purity, trust, and spontaneity—are not weak and vulnerable. They are the very expression of God revealing Himself to mankind. They carry with them the power and reality of their divine source. Hatred, evil, anger, crudity, sensualism, have no source in God or Truth and thus no power to overrule the nature of God expressed in man.

So we can support children by refusing to equate their true nature with vulnerability and helplessness.

We also can challenge the world's view of where control and governance lie. Each individual, no matter what his or her age or position, is truly under the only power there is—the all-loving, infinite Mind, God. This truth can be demonstrated in even the most challenging human situation, as was illustrated in the Bible when the Egyptian Pharaoh decreed that all male babies should be murdered. Think of the inspired listening to God's direction by Moses' mother, which led her to place the baby Moses in an ark of bulrushes by the river's edge. There, he was found and raised by the Pharaoh's daughter—thus ensuring not only his safety but the fulfillment of his great spiritual purpose (see Ex. 2:1–10). Each child today has a grand spiritual purpose, and our mothering thought, recognizing God's control over each of His ideas, can help foil the attempts of evil to thwart that purpose.

Whether we are parents or not, we have a responsibility to express the parenting nature of our Father-Mother God. This parenting begins in our own thought as we watch over just what concepts we allow to have a place there regarding children. Is it helpful to the world's children if we are believing that anyone is separate from God and operating independently? Is it helpful if we believe that life is in matter and at the disposal of material circumstances?

God's children are not defenseless little people subject to the mistakes and cruelty of big people. They are complete spiritual ideas, not needing to mature materially in order to have the protection and strength of divine Mind.

In Science and Health there is a description of children, which reads in part, "The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love" (p. 582). What power and invulnerability come with this true identity of children! Because they represent Life, they cannot be deprived of life, vitality, joy. As representatives of Truth, they cannot be demoralized by injustice, dishonesty, or erroneous concepts about them. As Love's pure representatives they are not polluted by sensualism, nor can they be deprived of tenderness and protection. Affirming these truths invokes the power of the Christ presence in the midst of whatever situation children are in.

Jesus made a point of recognizing the godliness of childlikeness. He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." And then, remarkably, he showed just how important were qualities such as receptivity and humility by saying, "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein" (Mark 10:14, 15).

We need to stand up for the presence of childlikeness everywhere—and especially in our own thinking. We each are daily contributing to the world's atmosphere of thought. "Beloved children," Mary Baker Eddy once said in an address to her Church, "the world has need of you,—and more as children than as men and women: it needs your innocence, unselfishness, faithful affection, uncontaminated lives" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 110).

The spiritual fact is that childlikeness is a quality of everyone. No one can really lose or destroy this innate Godlike nature. We are not little mortals or big mortals or anywhere in between. We are immortal children of God.