My prayer for the children

By Bea Roegge

News of the death of children, during September's terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia, brought heartache. All too frequently we hear of children killed in war zones and conflicts around the world.

The parents and relatives of those children, as well as parents in other countries where children perish, need to have their agony assuaged. Comfort is available in God, by whatever name this Parent of us all is called. Prayers—our prayers from the heart—do help lift the grief of others. In the words of Mary Baker Eddy: "I also have faith that my prayer availeth, and that He who is overturning will overturn until He whose right it is shall reign. Each day I pray: 'God bless my enemies; make them Thy friends; give them to know the joy and the peace of love' " (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 220).

When our first child died, prayer taught me something about trusting children to God's care and brought me healing. The baby had been born with deformities. The doctor told us he would not live, yet my husband and I still hoped he would. He survived for just several months.