Any title I can come up with for today’s post and the feeling that goes with it will be insufficient and so I have chosen to go with this.

There is so much hate and anger in the world right now. And the worst of it is what’s all over social media currently.

Me, like a lot of others I’m sure am mostly choosing to ignore it (when I can) due to how helpless & inadequate it makes me feel! Yes, selfishness, that’s the undercurrent while I witness all the innocent lives lost, or worse!

The time that I spend with my littles feel even more precious to me now than it did a few weeks ago.

I scrolled through my insta account over the last week and I my attention was drawn to a video of a father, not older than I, holding the lifeless body of his little girl against himself, unsuccessfully fighting back tears, kissing her sweet little face with her eyes closed, in actual helplessness to do anything more than just that. The image of that young dad is etched into my memory for the rest of this life, thoughts floating through my mind – what if that was me? What if that was mine?

Writing this post has been one of the toughest to do so far, with the multiple breaks I’ve had to take just to get through it. The pain I have been trying to avoid, almost physical, and yet I cannot even begin to imagine what that father was feeling when he held his little girl in his arms, her sweet little life abruptly ended, the future he would have dreamt for her, lost forever.

This is happening in thousands! This pain multiplied by thousands!

The world is collectively hurting right now for those who are suffering. And the suffering, are hurting worse!

I had someone shrug and tell me recently, “It’s war! There’s collateral damage.”

To that I have to say, CHILDREN ARE NEVER COLLATERAL DAMAGE! A world that thinks children can be and deserve to be collateral damage is not a world worth saving!

The innocence of a child is worth protecting more than anything else that I can think of. And this isn’t just the mother in me that feels this way.

Children should have the freedom to run around and play without the fear of losing their lives. Children should be allowed to be curious and happy, unconditionally. Children should be allowed to feel loved, without the need for sacrifice.

How safe we make the world for them today; will be how safe they make the world for them and everyone they share it with tomorrow.