Yesterday at work I had to write up a report for child abuse because one of my kids told me that his moms boyfriend shoved his sisters head into a wall. I saw her today and asked her how she got the bump and bruising on her forehead, after a long pause she fumbled around and said "um um...umm I tripped over a big rock at my house. Yeah, we have lots of big rocks everywhere."

I was watching the 3 year old classroom today while the teacher was gone and i was flipping through the "I love my dad because..." pictures the kids made for father's day, Michael had a picture of him and his dad and at the top the teacher wrote what he said when she asked him that question. It said, "I love my dad because...I want him to come stay at my house."

Yesterday I had to explain to a 5 year old that just because someone looks at you when you walk by them doesn't mean its ok to tell them that you're going to cut their head off.

I could go on...honestly. This is all stuff that's happened in a span of two days. And it's not even all of it. I feel like I'm watching a train wreck when I look at these kids. Most of them don't have both parents, several of their mothers have lost custody of them because of neglect, drug abuse, etc. One of them actually lost custody because she repeatedly left her 2 year old daughter in the car while she went and robbed houses. Remarkable. Saying that this crap breaks my heart is an understatement. It's borderline torture to watch them grow into the life of neglect that has been mapped out for them. These kids deserve good parents, they deserve to be read bedtime stories, they deserve to have some freakin stability in their lives. And it's hard because I can't go in there and take them away from it all. All I can do is hold them when I see them, and joke around with them, and tell them how smart they are. And I know that that matters, I just can't help but wonder, isn't this the type of battle we should be fighting?

Christians fight for unborn children all the time, but what about the ones who are alive, the ones who are suffering and feeling every blow that they get dealt? Is it because God really cares more about unborn babies? No. It's because thats easier. It's easier to care about abortion because it takes the responsibility off of us. All we have to do is tell someone how to live their life and then they either a) do, and you've "claimed another victory for Christ" or b) they don't, and you place eternal shame on them. It's a win-win, we feel like we're making a difference without getting our hands dirty. Because real children are hard to fight for, you actually have to step into their lives and love them where they're at, and that's complicated and sacrificial. But that's what Christ called us to, he called us to love with our hands and our feet. He asked us to fight for justice of the oppressed, the ones who don't have a voice. Because if we don't fight for them, no one will. This isn't to say that this is the only need in the world. It extends far beyond this. But I guess if I was to ask one thing, I can't help but wonder, what are we actually fighting for?